At first she thought she was back in Nazi Germany. A ringing
black starshine of pain was at her left eye where the boy had stuck
the ice pick. She could not see left anymore. She remembered the
Gestapo. But this could not be the Gestapo. The Gestapo had clean
fingernails and asked clear questions and let you know that if you
told them what they wanted, they would stop the pain.
The Gestapo wanted to know where Gerd was and she did not know
where Gerd was. She kept saying it. But these tormenters kept
saying "tawk Murican." They meant talk American.
They smelled different, these boys. You could smell them. She
had told this to Mrs. Rosenbloom at the high school auditorium
where the New York City Police Department had sent over someone for
a morning talk. It was safe sometimes in the morning.
The police, who thought they should get more money from a
near-bankrupt city, were now teaching the elderly how to get
mugged. You didn't resist, they told you. You gave up your purse.
There was a police lieutenant showing how to loosely fasten the
straps so that the mugger would not think you were trying to hold
onto your purse.
"I can smell them too," Mrs. Rosenbloom had said that
morning. But she cautioned Mrs. Mueller not to mention anything.
"They'll say that's racist and it is bad. You're not allowed to be
racist in this country."
Mrs. Mueller nodded. She did not want to be a racist because
that was a bad thing. The Nazis were that way and they were bad.
She had seen what they had done and as a good Christian she could
not support them. Nor could her husband Gerd.
They had wanted to reach Gerd. But Gerd was dead. A long time
ago, Gerd was dead. Mrs. Mueller felt a kick in her chest. The
Nazis were gone. These were blacks.
She wanted to beg the black boys not to kick her anymore. Not in
the breasts. Was that what was taught in the auditorium by the New
York City police? She tried to remember. Her hands were tied behind
her with the electric cord. No. The police did not tell you what to
do when they tied you up and put out your eye with an ice pick.
The New York City police told you how to get mugged. They never
gave old people lectures on how to get killed. Maybe if they got
more money, they would teach you how to be murdered as well as
mugged. Mrs. Mueller thought these things in a pain-crazed mind
that blended Nazi Germany and her slum apartment.
She wanted to tell the laughing black boys to kick her somewhere
else. Not in the breasts because that hurt too much. Would it be
racist to ask blacks to kick you somewhere else? She did not want
to be a racist. She saw what racism had done.
But Jews never beat her up. You never had to fear for your life
in a Jewish neighborhood. This had been a Jewish neighborhood when
she and Gerd had moved in. They were German and thought there might
be some trouble because of what the Nazis had done. There was no
trouble. There was no trouble with the Irish who had lived two
blocks over. Or the Poles. Or the Italians on the other side of the
Grand Concourse.
But then a law was passed. And. the law said it was bad to keep
people out of neighborhoods. Black people. And everyone was to be
taught to do the right thing. This was America. Everyone had to do
the right thing.
A woman had come to talk. She taught at a university. She had
told everyone in the community center about George Washington
Carver, a black man, and all the other nice black people and how
good blacks were and how bad people who hated them were and it was
a bad thing to hate blacks. Gerd, who was alive then, had
translated for Mrs. Mueller. He was so smart. He knew so much and
learned so quickly. He had been an engineer. If he were alive,
maybe he could make the boys understand not to kick her in the
breasts but somewhere else. No, they didn't want anything. They
were just having fun with her old body.
The woman who had told everyone how nice blacks were, was the
woman from the university. It was a progressive and good thing to
welcome blacks to the neighborhood. The whites and blacks were all
going to be culturally enriched. When the blacks started moving in
and you could not walk the streets at night anymore, the people
from the university who said how nice it was to live with blacks
did not come around. At first, they did not come around at night.
Then when more blacks moved in, they did not come around during the
day either. They went off somewhere else, Gerd said, to tell other
people how nice it was to live with blacks.
They never came to Walton Avenue anymore to tell people how
culturally enriched they were to have blacks around them because
now it was almost all blacks.
The ones who had money could run. But Gerd did not have enough
money anymore and they did not want to bother their daughter who
had come to them late in life. Born in America she was. So pretty.
She could speak English so well. Maybe she could ask these boys not
to kick her mother in the breasts where it hurt so much. Would that
be racist? She didn't want to be. a racist. That was a bad thing.
But she didn't want to be kicked in the breasts.
She wished the black policeman were here. He would make them
stop. There were nice blacks. But you were not allowed to say there
were nice blacks, because that would mean there were blacks who
weren't nice. And that would be racist.
It used to be such a nice neighborhood where you could walk out
in the street. Now you trembled when you had to walk past a window
that was not boarded up.
She felt the warm blood of her ripped breast come down her belly
and she tasted the blood come up her throat and she moaned and
heard them laugh at her frail struggle to live. She felt as if her
back had nails in it. Time had passed. There was no one kicking or
stabbing her anymore and that meant they might be gone.
But what did they want? They must have gotten it but there was
nothing left in the apartment to steal. There wasn't even a
television set any more. You couldn't keep a television set because
they would find out and steal it. No white person in the
neighborhood-there were three left-had televisions anymore.
Maybe they had stolen Gerd's silly machine that he had brought
with him from Germany. Maybe that was it. What else could they have
come for? They said Heil Hitler a lot, these young black boys. They must have
thought she was Jewish. Blacks liked to say that to Jews. Mrs.
Rosenbloom said once they would come to Jewish funerals to say that
and laugh.
They did not know Hitler. Hitler thought blacks were monkeys.
Didn't they read? He did not think they were dangerous either, just
funny monkeys.
When she was young it was her responsibility to learn how to
read in school. Now that she was old, the smart people from the
university who did not come around anymore said she was still
responsible for other people reading. Somehow she was responsible
because they could not learn to read or write.
But she could understand that. She had trouble herself learning
English and Gerd always had to translate for her. Maybe these
blacks spoke another language well and, like she did, they just had
trouble with English. Did they speak African?
She could not feel her arms anymore and the left side of her
head was numbed from pain in a faraway place and she knew she was
dying, tied here to her bed. She could not see from her right eye
whether it was dark yet because you had to board up your windows if
you wanted to walk from room to room. Otherwise you had to crawl
below the level of the windowsill so they would not see you. Mrs.
Rosenbloom could remember when old people would sit in the sun in
the park and young boys and girls would actually help you across a
street.
But Mrs. Rosenbloom had gone in the spring. She had said she
wanted to smell a fresh flower at noon again and she had remembered
that before blacks had moved into the neighborhood there were
daffodils in St. James Park in the spring and she was going to try
to smell one in the bright sun. She knew they had to be up by now.
So she had phoned and said goodbye in case something should happen.
Gerd had warned her not to go but she had said she was tired of
living without sunshine and even though she had the misfortune to
live in a now dangerous place, she wanted to walk in the sun again.
It was not her fault her skin was white and she was too poor to
move away from blacks and she was too old to run or to fight them
off. Maybe if she just walked out on the street, as if she had a
right to, maybe she could get to the park and back.
And so Mrs. Rosenbloom had headed for the park that noon and the
next day when Gerd had phoned one of the other whites who could not
leave the neighborhood, he found out that Mrs. Rosenbloom had not
contacted them either. Her phone did not answer.
Gerd reasoned that since there was nothing on the radio-he had a
small silent earphone put in because that way you could keep a
radio because they wouldn't know you had one and come to steal
it-then Mrs. Rosenbloom was dead cleanly. The radio and the
newspapers only had stories when they poured gasoline over you and
burned you alive as in Boston or when whites committed suicide
because the fear of blacks was too great as in Manhattan. The
normal everyday deaths were not on the radio, so perhaps Mrs.
Rosenbloom had died quickly and easily.
And later they saw someone who had known someone who had seen
her body picked up, so she was dead definitely. It was not a wise
move to go to the park. She should have waited for the New York
City police to give a lecture on how to be mugged in the park, or
gone in the very early hours when the only blacks out were the ones
who worked and they left you alone. But she had wanted to smell the
flowers under the noonday sun. There were worse things to die for
than to smell a daffodil in the full sun. Mrs. Rosenbloom must have
died cleanly. That was good in a neighborhood like this.
Was it a month ago that Mrs. Rosenbloom died? Two months? No, it
was last year. When did Gerd die? When did they leave Germany? This
was not Germany. No. This was America. And she was dying. It felt
all right as if this was the way it should be. She wanted to die to
go into that night where her husband waited. She knew she would see
him again and was glad he had not lived to observe how horribly she
was dying because she could never explain to him that it was all
right. That it looked worse than it was and already, Gerd darling,
she could feel the senses of the body leave, there being no more
need for pain when the body dies.
And she gave God her last thanks on earth and felt good leaving
her body.
When the life went from the frail old whitened form and the heat
went and the blood stopped moving in the veins, the ninety-two
pounds of human flesh that had been Mrs. Gerd Mueller did what
flesh always did unless frozen or dried. It decomposed. And it
smelled so frightfully that the New York City police finally came
to collect it. Two large men with unholstered guns provided
protection for the coroner's office. They made comments about the
neighborhood and when the body was leaving on the stretcher, a gang
of black youths cornered one of the policemen who fired off a shot,
catching underarm flesh from one of the young men. The gang fled
and the body went to the morgue untroubled and the detectives filed
their reports and went home to the suburbs where they could raise
their families sanely, in relative safety.
A boozy old reporter who had once worked for the many newspapers
in New York City and now worked for a television station leafed
through the homicide reports. It was just another old white person
killed by blacks and he put it back in a pile of such reports. It
offended him that human life would be so insignificant now, as if
the city were at war. And it reminded him of another time, when
deaths were also unimportant. It was thirty years before when
blacks shooting other blacks just was not news.
He put down the reports and answered a call from the newsroom. A
detective in the Bronx, trapped by a gang of black youths, had
fired and wounded one. The Black Ministry Council of Greater New
York was calling the shooting "barbarism." They were picketing the
house of the policeman's lawyer, demanding an end to legal defense
of policemen accused of shooting blacks.
The reporter was told by his assignment editor to link up with a
camera and do an interview in front of the lawyer's home.
The pickets were lounging in cars when the reporter got there.
He had to wait for his cameraman. When the camera arrived, it was
as if everyone had suddenly been injected with adrenalin. Out of
cars and off car hoods they came. They joined the circle and the
cameraman got precisely the right angle to make it look as if an
entire community was marching in front of this lawyer's house.
They chanted and marched. The reporter put the microphone in
front of a very black man with a very white collar under his rutted
face.
The reverend talked of maniacal policemen shooting down innocent
black youths, the victims of "the worst racism ever seen by
man."
The black man identified himself as Reverend Josiah Wadson,
chairman of the Black Ministry Council, co-chairman of the World
Church Group, executive director of Affirmative Housing Action I,
soon to be followed by Affirmative Housing Action II. His voice
rolled like mountains in Tennessee. He invoked the righteous wrath
of the Almighty. He bemoaned white barbarism.
The reporter wished fervently that Reverend Wadson, a massive
man, would talk upward instead of downward at the reporter, and, if
possible, hold his breath.
Reverend Wadson reeked gin and his breath could have peeled
epoxy off a battleship turret. The reporter tried to hide how
painful it was to stand near Reverend Wadson's breath.
Wadson called for an end to police brutality against blacks. He
talked of oppression. The reporter tried to hold his own breath so
he would not have to inhale so close to the reverend.
He also had to hide the bulge under the reverend's black mohair
jacket. The reverend packed a pearl-handled revolver and the
assignment editor would never allow this film to appear showing
that the reverend went around armed. The assignment editor didn't
want to appear racist; therefore all blacks had to appear good. And
unarmed, of course.
When the film appeared and was grabbed up by the network, there
was the sonorous weeping voice of the reverend describing the awful
plight of black youths and there were the outraged citizenry behind
him, marching in protest, and there was the reporter hunched up,
blocking the view of the reverend's gun, and the reporter was
turning away every so often and when his face came back close to
the reverend's, there were tears in his eyes. It looked as if the
story the reverend told was so sad that the veteran reporter could
not refrain from sobbing on camera.
When it was showed overseas, this was just what the foreign news
announcers said. So terrible was the police oppression of black
youths that a hardened white reporter broke down in tears. This
little news clip became famous within days.
Professors sat around discussing police brutality, which became
oppression, which became naturally enough "New York City
police-planned genocide."
When someone brought up the incredibly high crime rate of
blacks, the learned response was what could one expect after such
attempted police genocide? It was asked on tests in universities.
And those who did not know this answer failed.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Gerd Mueller was buried with a closed casket.
The funeral home had attempted to resurrect the left side of the
old face but the wax rebuilding where her eye had been proved too
difficult with old flesh. They couldn't turn in the folds in wax to
build up her old cheek. It looked too young for the immigrant from
Germany.
So they shielded everyone's eyes from what the muggers had done,
and when the casket was brought from the church to Our Lady of
Angels cemetery there was a large cortege. And this surprised Mrs.
Mueller's daughter because she did not know that her parents knew
that many people, especially men in their thirties and forties. And
a few of them who asked questions.
No, her parents had left nothing. Oh, there was a safe deposit
box that held only a few bonds. Trinkets. That's what one mourner
said he was looking for. Trinkets. Old German trinkets.
And the daughter thought this was shocking. But what was really
shocking in today's world? So a buyer wanted to do business at
graveside? Maybe that was his thing? And she longed for the days
when some things had been shocking, because her heart hurt fiercely
and she thought of the old woman dying alone and how frightening it
had been to visit her parents after the neighborhood had
changed.
"No bloody trinkets, damn you," she yelled.
And that day, wreckers began taking down the apartment building
where the Muellers had lived.
They moved in with an armed escort of federal marshals, each
over six feet tall and karate trained. They sealed off the street.
They built armor-plated barricades. They carried truncheons. The
old walk-up building was taken down with surgical precision brick
by brick, and the debris left the area, not by truckloads, but in
large white trunks. With padlocks.
CHAPTER TWO
His name was Remo and he was taking the elevator up from
beneath. He smelled the heavy buildup of engine fumes embedded in
the caked grease, and felt long cables tremble ever so slightly
when the elevator came to a floor and that fifteen-story ripple
started with a halt of the elevator and shimmied down to the
basement and then back up past the fifteenth floor to the
penthouse, five stories overhead.
He had a good forearm hold on a bolt that he kept just above his
lean frame. People who held onto things for their lives usually
tired quickly, precisely because they held on for their lives. Fear
gave speed and power to the muscles, not endurance.
If one wanted to hold onto something, one became a solid part of
it, extended himself out through the extruding bolt, so that the
grip did not strangle but extended from what it was joined to. As
he had been taught, he let the hand do the attaching lightly and
forgot about it. So that when the elevator started again, his body
swayed easily from the hand that was the pivot joint and up he
went.
It was his right hand and he could hear people walking just
above his right ear.
He had been there since early morning and when the elevator
stopped at the penthouse floor, he knew he would not be there much
longer. At the penthouse floor, different things happened. Remo
heard locks snap, twenty stories down, twenty locks, each for an
elevator door. He had been told about this. He heard the grunt of
muscled men who forced themselves up through strain. They checked
the top of the elevator. He had been told about that also. The
bodyguards always checked the roof of the elevator because it was
known men could hide there.
The roof was sealed with reinforced steel plating and so was the
floor. This prevented anyone from burrowing down or up into the
elevator.
The elevator to the street was the only vulnerable point in the
penthouse complex of the South Korean consul in Los Angeles. The
rest was a fortress. Remo had been told about that.
And when he was asked how he would penetrate this complex, he
answered that he was paid for his services, not his wisdom. Which
was true. But even truer was that Remo did not really know how he
was going to penetrate this complex at the time and he didn't feel
like thinking about it, and most of all, he hadn't felt like
carrying on the conversation. So he threw out some wiseacre
comment, the kind he himself had endured for more than a decade,
and on the morning that upstairs wanted the job done, he sauntered
over to the building with the elegant penthouse fortress and made
his first move without even thinking.
One did not have to scheme too much anymore. At first, the
defenses he had run into-where people locked gates or lived high up
or surrounded themselves with bodyguards-had presented problems.
And it was very exciting at first to solve them.
This morning, for some reason, he had been thinking about
daffodils. He had seen some earlier in the spring and this morning
he was thinking about these yellow flowers and how now when he
smelled them, it was entirely different from the way he had smelled
them before, before he had become this other person he now was. In
the old days, there might have been a sweet odor. But now when he
smelled a flower, he could inhale its movements. It was a symphony
of pollen climaxing in his nostrils. It was a chorus and a shout of
life. To be Sinanju, to be a learner and a knower of the
disciplines of the small North Korean village on the West Korean
Bay, was to know life more fully. A second now had more life in it
than an hour had had before.
Of course, sometimes Remo didn't want more life. He would have
preferred less of it.
So, thinking of these yellow flowers, he entered the new white
brick-and-aluminum building with the full story-high windows and
the elegant marble entranceway and the waterfall going over the
plastic flowers in the Iobby, took the elevator up to the tenth
floor. There, he fiddled around with the stop and emergency buttons
until he got the tenth floor about waist-high, then slid under the
elevator, found a bolt on the undercarriage, locked his right hand
to it, until amid screaming from many floors, someone got the
elevator started again. And there he waited and swung until later
when the elevator went all the way up to the penthouse.
Not much thinking. He had been told so early by his teacher, by
Chiun, current Master of Sinanju, that people always show you the
best way to attack them.
If they have a weakness, they surround it with ditches or armor
plating or bodyguards. So Remo, upon hearing of all the protection
around the elevator when he got the assignment, went right to the
elevator, thinking of daffodils because there wasn't really much
else to think about.
And now, the person he wanted walked into the elevator, asking
questions in Korean. Were all the locks on so the trip down could
not be interrupted? They were, Colonel. Was the top hatch secure?
Yes, Colonel. The roof entrance? Yes, Colonel. The floor? Yes,
Colonel. And, Colonel, you look so splendid in your gray suit.
Most American, no?
Yes, like a businessman.
It is all business.
Yes, Colonel.
And the twenty stories of cable moved.
And the elevator lowered.
And Remo rocked his body. The elevator descending in a long slow
drop of twenty stories rocked with the light human form on its
undercarriage, like a bell with a swinging clapper. It picked up
the back-and-forth of the rhythm-perfect sinew machine on its
undercarriage, and at the twelfth floor, the elevator began banging
its guide rails, spitting sparks and shivering the inside
panels.
The occupants pressed emergency stop. The coils snapped to a
quivering stillness. Remo took three slow swings, and on the third,
hand-ladled his body up into the floor space at the door
opening above him, and then, getting his left hand up into the
rubber of the inner elevator door, gave the whole sliding mechanism
a good bang and a healthy shove with his left side.
The door opened like a champagne cork popping into an aluminum
cradle. And Remo was inside the elevator.
"Hello," he said in his most polite Korean but he knew, even
with his heavy American accent, the tones of the greeting were
sodden with the heaviness of the northern Korean town of Sinanju,
the only accent Remo had ever learned.
The short Korean with the lean hard face had a .38 Police
Special out of the shoulder holster under his blue jacket with good
speed. It told Remo that the man in the gray was definitely the
colonel and the one he wanted. Koreans, when they had bodyguards,
thought it beneath their dignity to fight. And this was somewhat
strange because the colonel was supposed to be one of the most
deadly men in the south of that country with, both hand and knife,
and, if he wished, the gun too.
"I don't suppose that would pose any problem to you?" Remo had
been asked when given the assignment and told of the colonel's
skills.
"Nah," Remo had said.
"He has the renowned black belt in karate," Remo had been
told.
"Yeah, hmmm," Remo had said, not all that interested.
"Would you like to see his moves in action then?"
"Nah," Remo had said.
"He is perhaps one of the most feared men in Asia. He is very
close to South Korea's president. We need him alive. He's a fanatic
so that may not be easy." This warning had come from Dr. Harold W.
Smith, director of Folcroft Sanitarium, the cover for a special
organization which worked outside the laws of the land, in the hope
that the rest of the system could work inside. Remo was its silent
enforcement arm and Chiun the teacher who had given him more than
American money could buy.
For while the assassins of Sinanju had rented out their services
to emperors and kings and pharaohs even before the Western world
started keeping track of years by numbers, they never sold how they
did it.
So when the organization paid for Chiun to teach Remo to kill,
they got their money's worth. But when Chinn taught Remo to breathe
and live and think and explore the inner universe of his own body,
creating a creature that used its brain cells and body organs at
least eight times more effectively than normal man, Chiun gave the
secret organization more than it had bargained for. A new man,
totally different from the one sent to him for training.
And Remo could not explain it. He could not tell Smith what the
teachings of Sinanju had given him. It would be like trying to
explain soft to someone who could not feel or red to a person born
blind. You did not explain Sinanju and what the masters knew and
taught to someone who was going to ask you someday if you might
have trouble with a karate expert. Does the winter have trouble
with the snow? Someone who thought of Remo's watching movies of
another fighter in action could not possibly understand Sinanju.
Ever.
But Smith had insisted upon showing the movies of the colonel in
action. It was taken by the CIA which had worked heavily with the
colonel at one time. Now there was a strain between Korea and
America and the colonel was one of the larger parts of it. They
could not get to him because he had become familiar with American
weapons. It was like a teacher trying to trick an old pupil who had
grown too wise. It was just the sort of mission Smith thought the
organization would be good for.
"That's nice," Remo had said and whistled an off-key tune in the
hotel room in Denver where he had gotten the assignment for the
Korean colonel. Smith, undeterred by Remo's indifference that had
blossomed into yawning boredom, ran the movies of the colonel in
action. The colonel broke a few boards, kicked a few younger men in
the jaw, and danced around a bit. The movie was black and
white.
"Whew," Smith had said. He arched an eyebrow, a very severe
emotion on that normally frosted face.
"Yeah, wha'?" asked Remo. What was Smith talking about?
"I couldn't see his hands," said Smith.
"Not that fast," said Remo. After awhile you had to listen and
observe people to find out where their limits were, because
sometimes you just couldn't believe how dead they were to life.
Smith really believed the man was fast and dangerous, Remo
realized.
"His hands were a blur," said Smith.
"Nah," said Remo. "Stop the frames where he's flailing around.
They're sharp."
"You mean to tell me you can see individual frames in a movie?"
asked Smith. "That's impossible."
"As a matter of fact, unless I remind myself to relax, that's
all I see. It's all a bunch of stills."
"You couldn't see his hands in still frames," Smith
challenged.
"All right, fine," said Remo pleasantly. If Smith wanted to
believe that, fine. Was there anything else that Smith wanted.
Smith dimmed the lights in the hotel room and put the small
movie projector into reverse. The lights flickered into a blur, as
the camera whirred and then stopped. There was the still frame. And
there was the colonel's striking hand, frozen and clear. Smith
moved the camera still by still to another frame, then another. The
hand was picture-sharp throughout, not too fast for the film at
all.
"But it looked so fast," said Smith. So regularly and
consistently had he acknowledged that Remo had changed that he was
not aware of how much had truly happened, how much Remo had really
changed.
And Remo told him more that he thought had changed. "When I
first started doing all this for you, I used to respect what we
were doing. No more," Remo had said, and he had left that hotel
room with instructions on what America wanted from the Korean
colonel. He could have had a few hours' briefing on how the CIA and
the FBI had failed to reach the man, what his defenses were, but
all he wanted was a general description of the building so he could
find it. And, of course, Smitty had mentioned the protection on the
elevator.
So Remo watched the .38 Special come around toward him from the
man in the blue suit and watched the man in the gray suit back away
to let his servant do the job and that was good enough
identification for him.
He caught the gun wrist with a forefinger, snapping it through
the bone. He did this in such perfect consonance with the
bodyguard's own rhythm, it appeared as if the man had taken the gun
out of the holster only to throw it away. The hand didn't stop
moving and the gun flew into the open crack between floors and down
into silence. As Remo cupped his hand behind the head, he gave his
fingers and palms an extra little twist. This was not a stroke he
had been taught. He wanted to wipe away the grease from the
elevator's undercarriage. He did that as he brought the guard's
head down into his rising knee-one, pushing through with a tidy
snap at the end, right behind the man's head toward the open wall;
two, caught the returning body; and three, put it to rest quietly
and forever on its back.
"Hi, sweetheart," said Remo to the colonel in English. "I need
your cooperation." The colonel threw his briefcase at Remo's head.
It hit a wall and snapped open, spilling packages of green American
money. Apparently the colonel was heading to Washington to either
rent or buy an American congressman.
The colonel assumed a dragon position with arching hands like
claws, and elbows forward. The colonel hissed. Remo wondered
whether there were sales on American congressmen like any other
commodity. Did one get the votes of a dozen congressmen cheaper
than buying twelve separately? Was a vote ever reduced to a
bargain? What was the price of a Supreme Court justice? And what
about cabinet members? Could someone purchase something in a nice
secretary of commerce?
The colonel kicked.
Or perhaps rent a director of the FBI? Could a buyer be
interested in a vice president? They were really very cheap. The
last one sold out for cash in an envelope, bringing disgrace to a
White House already full of it. Imagine a vice president selling
out for only fifty thousand dollars in cash payoff. That brought
shame to his office and his country. For fifty thousand dollars,
one should get no more than a vice president of Greece. It was a
disgrace to be able to buy an American vice president for so
little.
Remo caught the kick.
But what could one expect from anyone who would write a book for
money?
The colonel threw a kick with the other leg, which Remo caught,
and returned the foot to the floor. The colonel sent a stroke that
could crush brick at Remo's skull. Remo caught the hand and put it
back at the colonel's side. Then came the other hand, and back it
went too.
Perhaps, thought Remo, American Express or Master Charge might
simply credit an account, or every freshman congressman would get
one of the stickers of those credit agencies and attach it to his
office door and when someone wanted to bribe him, he wouldn't have
to carry cash out into the dangerous Washington streets, but just
present his credit card and the congressman could take out one of
those machines he would get when he swore to uphold the
Constitution as he took office, and run through the briber's credit
card and at the end of every month get his bribe through his own
bank. Just bribing a congressman with cold cash was demeaning.
The colonel bared his teeth and lunged, trying to get a bite at
Remo's throat.
Possibly, thought Remo, there might even be a stock market for
Washington politicians, with bids on farm votes and things like
that. Senators up three points, congressmen down an eighth, the
president steady. And while his thoughts were sarcastic, Remo was
greatly sad. Because he did not want his government to be that, he
did not want that stain of corruption, he not only wanted to
believe in his country and his government, he wanted the facts to
justify it also. It was not even good enough the majority were
honest, he wanted all of them that way. And he hated the money
strewn around this elevator floor as he throttled the Korean
colonel. For that money was destined for American politicians and
it meant that there were hands out.
So this little thing with the colonel was a bit of a pleasure
and he leveled the man and put him on his back and very slowly he
said-so that the man would be sure this was not just a windy
threat-"Colonel, I am about to puree your face in my hands. You can
save your face and your lungs which can be snapped out of your body
and your gonads and various other parts of your body that you will
miss tremendously. You can do this by cooperating. I am a busy man,
Colonel."
And in Korean, the colonel gasped: "Who are you?"
"Would you believe a Freudian analyst?" asked Remo, pressing his
right thumb under the colonel's cheekbone and pressing down so that
the left eye of the colonel strained at its nerve endings.
"Aieee," screamed the colonel.
"And so, please dig deep into your subconscious and come up with
your payroll of American politicians. All right, sweetie?" said
Remo. "Aieeee," screamed the colonel, because it felt as if
the eye were coming out of its socket.
"Very good," said Remo and released pressure. The eye eased back
into the socket, suddenly filled with a roadmap of red veins as the
burst capillaries flooded the eyeball. The red lines in the left
eye would disappear in two days. And by the time they did, the
colonel would be a defector in the custody of the FBI. He would be
called a key witness and newsmen would say he defected because he
was afraid of returning to South Korea which of course made no
sense for he was one of the closest friends of the South Korean
president. And the colonel would name names and how much each one
got.
And Remo hoped they would go to jail. It offended him that the
grease-slicked head with the little rat grin of a former vice
president went pandering around the world when he should have been
behind bars doing time like the common thief he was.
So he told the colonel very clearly and very slowly in English
and in Korean that all the names would be named and that there was
nothing that could protect the colonel.
"Because, Colonel, I have greater access to your nerves and to
your pain than you do," said Remo, as the elevator closed its door
and descended toward the basement.
"Who are you?" asked the colonel, whose English occasionally
lost verbs but who pronounced any figure above ten thousand dollars
flawlessly. "You work for me. Fifty thousand dollars."
"You're not talking to a vice president of the United States,"
said Remo angrily.
"A hundred thousand."
"Nobody voted me into office, buddy," said Remo.
"Two hundred thousand. I make you rich. You work for me."
"You don't understand. I am not the director of the FBI. I've
never sworn to uphold the Constitution and carry out any duties on
behalf of the American people. I'm not for sale," said Remo and
took one of the bundles of new one hundred dollar bills and put the
edge of it into the colonel's mouth,
"Eat. It's good for you. Eat. Please. Just a nibble. Try it,
you'll like it," said Remo, and as the colonel tried to chew at the
corner of the paper, Remo told him who he was.
"I'm the spirit of America, Colonel. The man who walked on the
moon, who invented the light bulb, who grows more food on his land
because of his own sweat than any other. If I have a fault, it's
that I've been too kind to too many people too often. Eat."
When the elevator reached the lower security area and the door
opened, the guards at the door saw only their commander leaning
numbly against the back o£ the elevator and his bodyguard
stretched dead upon the floor, his right hand loose jelly in
unpunctured skin. Money was strewn around the elevator floor and
for some strange reason, the colonel was chewing on the end of a
packet of bills.
"Take me to the FBI immediately," he said in a daze.
When they were gone, Remo slid from the undercarriage where he
had waited before and squirmed his way through a breadbox-sized
hole, out into the garage.
He heard people yelling all the way up the twenty stories of the
building at the closed and locked elevator doors. He smiled at a
startled guard.
By noon, Remo was back at the trim white yacht in San Francisco
Bay that he had left early that morning.
He moved quietly because he did not wish to disturb what was
happening in the cabin. It sounded like iron pans being clanged
against a blackboard. Remo waited outside and noticed that the
sounds went on uninterrupted. It was Chiun reciting his poetry and
usually he would stop to give himself reviews, the style of which
he had read in American papers.
He would normally tell himself: "Superb with the power of
genius… iridescent magnificence, denning the yery role
itself." The role Chiun was denning at this moment was that of the
wounded flower in his 3,008-page poem that had already been
rejected by twenty-two American publishers. An insensitive bee had
plucked his pollen too rapidly.
The poem was in old Korean, the Korean dialect uninfluenced by
Japanese. Remo peered into the cabin and saw the crimson and gold
kimono of Chiun's poetry robe. He saw the long fingernails
gracefully glide into the positions of a flower and then the
flutter of a bee. He saw the wisps of white hair and the faint long
delicate beard and realized that the deadliest assassin in the
world had a visitor.
He looked farther around through the little porthole and he saw
the shined black cordovan shoes on the carpet. The visitor was Dr.
Harold W. Smith.
Remo let the director sit through another half hour of the Ung
poetry which Smith could not possibly understand because he did not
know Korean. But such was Smith's great ability to deal with
government figures that he could sit appearing interested hours on
end, listening to what had to be to him just discordant sounds. He
could have been hearing a record of dishes being washed and gotten
as much real information from it. But here he was, eyebrows curled,
thin lips pursed, head cocked ever so slightly, as if he were
taking notes at a college lecture.
At a pause, Remo entered amid Smith's applause,
"Did you get the significance of that, Smitty?" asked Remo.
"I'm not familiar with the form," said Smith, "but what I do
understand, I appreciate."
"What do you understand?" Remo asked.
"The hand movements. They were a flower, I assume," said
Smith.
Chiun nodded. "Yes. Some are uncultured dregs and others have
sensitivity. Perhaps it is my special burden, that I am condemned
to teach those who least appreciate it. That I, to earn tribute for
my village as my ancestors before me, must squander the wisdom of
Sinanju before the ingrate who has just arrived. Diamonds in the
mud. A pale piece of a pig's ear, here before you."
"Barf," said Remo, in the manner of the Americans.
"Ah, you see here the gratitude," said Chiun to Smith with a
satisfied nod.
Smith leaned forward. His lemony face was even more somber than
usual.
"I imagine you are wondering why I would appear here before both
of you, so close to a spot where I assume you have just completed
an assignment. I have never done this before, as you both know. We
go to great pains to keep ourselves and our operations from public
knowledge. Public knowledge of our operations would ruin us. It
would be an admission that our government operates illegally."
"Oh, Emperor Smith," said Chiun. "He who holds the strongest
sword makes his slightest whim legal."
Smith nodded in respect. This always amused Remo, when Smith
tried to explain democracy to Chiun. For the House of Sinanju had
served only kings and despots, the only ones with enough money to
pay tribute to the assassins of Sinanju for the support of the
village on rocky Korean coast. It did not occur to Remo at that
moment that Smith was about to try to buy Chiun away from Remo,
with fortunes far beyond those of petty kings and pharaohs.
"So I must be aboveboard in this," said Smith. "I have
found you more and more difficult to deal with, Remo. Incredibly
difficult."
Chiun smiled and his lined, aged face moved up and down in a
nod. He noted that lo these many years he had endured Remo's lack
of respect in gentle silence, not letting the world know what it
was to give the great treasure of the knowledge of Sinanju to one
who was so unworthy. Chiun compared, himself, in his high squeaky
voice, to the beautiful flower that his poem was about, how it was
stepped on, to spring back uncomplaining with its beauty for the
entire world.
"Good," said Smith. "I'd hoped you'd feel that way. I really
did."
"I really don't give a ding dong," Remo said.
"In front of Emperor Smith, you say those things to a Master of
Sinanju?" said Chiun. Gloom shrouded the parchment face and the
Master of Sinanju lowered himself to the floor of the cabin, a
delicate head rising up from a mushroom of crimson and gold robe.
Underneath that kimono, Remo knew the long fingernails were woven
together and the legs were crossed.
"All right," said Smith. "Gracious Master of Sinanju, you have
created a marvel in Remo. You, as I, find it difficult to deal with
him. I am prepared to offer you now ten times the tribute we ship
to your village, if you will train others."
Chiun nodded and smiled the thin calm acceptance of a flat warm
lake in summer, waiting for the night to chill. This was due the
House of Sinanju, Chiun said. And more was due.
"I will increase the tribute. Twenty times what we now pay,"
Smith said.
"Let me tell you something, Little Father," Remo said to Chiun.
"The cost of the American submarine that delivers the gold to your
village is more than the gold itself. He's not giving you that
much."
"Fifty times the tribute," Smith said,
"See. See my worth," Chiun said to Remo. "What are you paid,
white thing? Even your own whites offer me tribute tenfold.
Twentyfold. A hundredfold. And you? Who offers you anything?"
"All right," said Smith who thought his last offer had been a
fifty-times increase. "A hundredfold increase o£
eighteen-karat gold. That sort of gold is…"
"He knows, he knows," said Remo. "Give him a diamond and he can
tell a flaw by holding it. He's a frigging jewelry store. He knows
half the big stones in the world by heart. Telling Chiun about gold
is like explaining the mass to the Pope."
"To support my poor village, I have become familiar to a degree
with the value of things," Chiun said modestly.
"Ask him what a blue-white diamond, two karat flawless, sells
for in Antwerp," said Remo to Smith. "Go ahead. Ask him."
"On behalf of the organization and the American people it
serves, we are grateful to you, Chiun, Master of Sinanju. And you,
Remo, you will receive a large stipend every year for the rest of
your life. You will remain in retirement. You may die in bed of old
age, knowing you have served your country well."
"I don't believe you," said Remo. "I believe I'll get the first
check and maybe the second and then one day I'll open the door and
the steps will blow up in my face. That's what I believe."
Remo loomed over Smith and let his left hand float under Smith's
chin so Smith would realize Remo was willing to kill with that hand
right now. He wanted his body presence to dominate Smith. But the
stern man was not about to be dominated by a threat. His voice did
not waver as he repeated the offer to the man who had taken the
organization so far by himself. In Remo, the organization had the
ultimate killer arm, the human being maximized to its highest
potential. How Chiun had gotten this from Remo, Smith did not know.
But if he could do it with one, he could do with others.
"I'll tell you what I'm offering, Smitty," Remo said. "I'm
leaving. And if you don't try to kill me, I won't kill you. But if
by chance someone within five feet of me is poisoned or a taxi runs
out of control on a street that I'm walking on or if a random shot
is fired somewhere near me during a holdup, I am going to tell the
world about an organization called CURE, that tried to make
government work outside the Constitution. And how nothing got
better and everything got worse, except a few bodies here and there
got lost. Somewhere. I don't know where. And then I'm going to
squeeze your lemon lips into your lemon heart and we'll be even. So
goodbye."
"I'm sorry you feel that way, Remo. I've known you felt that way
for some time. When did it all start? If you don't mind my
asking."
"When people couldn't walk the frigging streets and I'm running
around after some secret somewhere. The country isn't working. A
man puts in forty hours a week to hear some son of a bitch tell him
he's got no right to eat meat, but he's got to take the food off
his table and give it to people who hang around all day and call
him names. Enough. And that son of a bitch who tells him that,
chances are, is on some public payroll somewhere making a thousand
dollars a week saying how rotten this country is. No more."
"All right," said Smith sadly. "Thank you for what you have
done."
"You're welcome," said Remo, without any kind feeling in it. He
removed himself from over Smith and when he looked back he saw
perspiration glint in the noonday sun off Smith's pale brow. Good,
Remo thought. Smith had tasted fear. He had just been too proud to
show it.
"And now for you, Master of Sinanju," Smith said.
Chiun nodded and spoke: "We accept your gracious offer but we
have unfortunately fallen into an economic peculiarity and this
distresses us so much. While we would be most happy to train
hundreds, thousands, we cannot afford to. We have put more than a
decade of work into this," said Chiun, nodding to Remo, "and we
must protect that investment, worthless as it may seem to
anyone."
"Five hundred times what your village gets now," Smith said.
"And that probably means two submarines to deliver it."
"You can make it a million times more," said Remo. "He's not
going to train your men. He might waltz a few people around, but
he's not giving them Sinanju."
"Correct," said Chiun, elated. "I will never teach another white
man Sinanju because of the disgusting ingratitude of this one.
Therefore, no. I will stay with this ingrate."
"But you can be free of him and richer," Smith said. "I know of
the House of Sinanju, You have done business for centuries."
"Centuries upon centuries," corrected Chiun.
"And this is more money," Smith said.
"He's not leaving me," said Remo. "I'm the best he's ever had.
Better than Koreans he's had. If he could have found a decent
Korean to take his place someday, he never would have gone to work
for you."
"Is that true?" Smith asked.
"Nothing a white man says is true, except of course your
gloriousness, oh Emperor."
"It's true," Remo said. "Besides he's not leaving me. He likes
me." "Hah," said Chiun imperiously. "I stay to protect my
investment in that unworthy white skin. That is why the Master of
Sinanju stays."
Smith stared at his briefcase. Remo had never seen the human
computer so thoughtful. Finally he looked up with a small
tight-lipped smile.
"I guess we're stuck with each other, Remo," he said.
"Maybe," said Remo.
"You're the only one who can do what's got to be done," Smith
said.
"I'll listen but I'm not promising," Remo said.
"It's all sort of sticky. We're not sure what we're looking
for."
"So what else is new?" Remo asked.
Smith nodded glumly. "About a week ago, an old lady living in a
poor neighborhood was tortured to death." It happened in the Bronx,
and now agents from many nations were looking for an object or
device that old woman must have had. The device had been brought to
this country by her husband, a German refugee, who had died shortly
before she did.
The sun lowered red over the Pacific ocean and still Smith
talked. When he stopped, the stars were out.
And Remo said he would do the job, if he felt like it in the
morning.
Smith nodded again, as he rose to his feet.
"Goodbye, Remo. Good luck," he said.
"Luck. You don't understand luck," Remo said contemptuously.
"And America bids respect and honor to the awesome magnificence
of the Master of Sinanju," Smith said to Chiun.
''Of course," said Chiun.
CHAPTER THREE
Colonel Speskaya believed there was no problem that did not have
a rational solution. He believed wars were started by people who
really lacked information. With enough information properly
organized, any fool could see who would win which war and when.
Colonel Speskaya was twenty-four and ordinarily would not have
received such an august rank so young in the NKVD, the Russian
secret police, except that everything he did worked out so
well.
He knew more than any man the basic difference between the NKVD
and the American CIA. The CIA had more money and fell on its face
publicly. The NKVD had less money and fouled up in private.
Speskaya knew that in a well-run organization there should be no
such thing as a twenty-four-year-old colonel in peacetime, even
though for the NKVD no time was peacetime. He also knew he was
going to be a general soon. Still, America was stupid also and when
he was called into the American section he felt no great fear.
There was undoubtedly a problem that no one wanted to take
responsibility for. When he saw the field marshal's epaulettes on
the man briefing him, he knew it was a big problem.
In ten minutes, he had it just about solved.
"Your problem is that you know something big is happening in
America but you're not sure what and you don't want to make any
great commitment until you know, correct? You are embarrassed that
we come so late into this thing in America. So we will take a look
at what happened to Mrs. Gerd Mueller of the Bronx, New York, and
we will see why so many intelligence agencies are hovering around
there and why an entire building should be torn down by the CIA and
carted off in little boxes the size of trunks. Of course, I will go
myself," said Colonel Speskaya.
He was blond and blue-eyed, of delicate features that hinted of
the Volga Germans. He was reasonably athletic and, as some of his
women said, "technically a great lover but lacks something. He
provides satisfaction the way food stores provide cheese."
Colonel Vladimir Speskaya entered the United States through
Canada in midspring as Anthony Spesk. He was accompanied by his
bodyguard whose name was Nathan. Nathan understood English but did
not speak it. He was five-feet-two and weighed one hundred twenty
pounds.
Nathan overcame this deficit in size by his willingness to shoot
any warm thing. Nathan would put a .38 slug in the mouth of a baby.
Nathan liked seeing blood. He hated targets. Targets didn't
bleed.
Nathan confided to an instructor once that if you shot right
into the heart of someone, they didn't bleed nice.
Nathan gave his advice: "Get the aorta and then you've got
something."
The NKVD didn't know whether to commit him to a hospital for the
criminally insane or promote him. Speskaya took him as a bodyguard
and let him have his gun only when the occasion arose. Nathan asked
if he could at least keep the bullets. Speskaya said this was all
right provided he didn't go around polishing them in public. When
Nathan wore his uniform that called for a holster, Speskaya made
him carry a toy pistol. He was not about to let him walk the
streets of Moscow with a loaded weapon.
Nathan was dark with a ratlike face and protruding front teeth
that looked as if he were a new race of man that fed on birch
bark.
When Colonel Speskaya, alias Anthony Spesk, reached Seneca
Falls, New York, he took a new .38 caliber pistol from his
suitcase-border police never checked one's baggage between Canada
and America-and gave it to Nathan.
"Nathan, this is your gun. I am giving this to you because I
trust you. I trust you know how much Mother Russia depends on you.
You will be able to use this gun but only when I say so. All
right?"
"I swear. By all the saints and by our chairman, by the blood of
all the Russians that is in me, by the heroes of Stalingrad, I
swear and I pledge this caution to you, Colonel. I will, with
frugality and caution, use this instrument and never without your
permission will I fire even one shot."
"Good Nathan," said Anthony Spesk.
Nathan kissed his commander's hand.
At a traffic light entering the New York Thruway, Spesk felt an
explosion behind his right ear. He saw a hitchhiker jump up in the
air, as though being yanked backward. The hitchhiker bled profusely
from the chest. She had been hit in the aorta.
"Sorry," said Nathan.
"Give me the gun," said Spesk.
"I really swear this time," said Nathan.
"If you keep killing people, eventually the American police may
catch us. Now come on. We have important business. Give me the
gun."
"I'm sorry," said Nathan. "I said I'm sorry. I really said it. I
swear it this time. I really swear it. Last time was only a
promise."
"Nathan, I do not have time to argue with you. We must get away
from this place because of what you have done. Do not use that gun
again." Spesk let him keep the gun.
"Thank you, thank you. You are the best colonel that ever was,"
said Nathan, who was good all the way till New Paltz when Spesk
pulled off the road to sign into a motel. Nathan shot the clerk's
face off.
Spesk grabbed the gun away and drove off with the crying
Nathan.
It was really not so bad as it might appear. If one studied
America, as Colonel Speskaya had, one would discover that murders
were rarely solved unless the murderer wanted them solved. There
was just no machinery for protecting the lives of the citizens. If
this were Germany or Holland, Spesk wouldn't even have brought
along a bodyguard.
But America had become such a jungle that it was just not safe
to enter it without protection anymore.
"I will carry the gun," said Spesk angrily as he drove off tired
into the dark night heading for New York City.
"Fascist," mumbled Nathan.
"What?" demanded Spesk.
"Nothing, sir," sniffed Nathan.
It was red dawn when Colonel Speskaya entered New York City. He told Nathan to stop making bang sounds and
pointing.his finger at the few people walking the streets. Nathan
suddenly said he was frightened.
"Why?" asked Spesk, studying a map.
"Because we will starve to death. Or be killed in the food
riots."
"You will not starve in America. Look at those shops. You can
have all the food you want."
"That's only for American generals," Nathan said.
"No. It's for everyone."
"That's a lie."
"Why?" asked Spesk.
"Because Pravda says there are food riots and the people starve
in America."
"Pravda is a long way away. Sometimes stories change at a
distance."
"No. It's in print. I read it."
"What about American newspapers? They don't tell stories about
food riots," Spesk said.
"American newspapers are propaganda."
"But they're printed too," said Spesk.
This caused Nathan some confusion. His brow furrowed. His dark
Russian face clouded with gloom as he thought, difficult and sticky
step by difficult and sticky step. Finally, the pistol killer
smiled.
"It is Russian printing that is always the truth because you can
read it right. It is American printing that lies because we cannot
read it. It can say anything with those funny letters it uses."
"Good, Nathan," said Spesk, but again his bodyguard bothered him
with a question so Spesk said he would explain everything about the
mission now, why he had come into America personally with an
operative who was not familiar with the language.
"But a good shot and a good Communist," Nathan insisted.
"Yes," said Spesk.
"So, may I have my gun?"
"No," said Spesk. "Now listen, because you are getting a rare
treat," said the youngest colonel in the NKVD. "You are getting to
know what is going on. Even generals don't know that."
Nathan said he knew what was going on. They were righting
imperialism. From the borders of Germany where Russian troops were
stationed and into Cuba, until Russia had conquered imperialism
from one end of the world to the other, where no other flag flew
but the hammer and sickle.
"Good," said Spesk. "About ten days ago when you were called in
from Vladivostok, a strange thing was happening in America. The
CIA, our enemy, was tearing down a building piece by piece. This
attracted attention. West German intelligence was interested,
Argentine intelligence was interested. They did what we call
overload an area and we knew that because we traced them moving
large numbers of people-eight and ten, that is a lot in
espionage-out of their normal duties to watch one building being
torn down. To try to talk to the daughter of a woman who was
killed."
"Who killed her?"
"At first we thought muggers."
"What is a mugger?" asked Nathan.
"A mugger is a person who jumps on someone, beats them up, and
takes their money. There are a lot of them in New York City."
"Because of capitalist oppression, there are muggers, correct?"
asked Nathan.
"No, no," said Spesk, annoyed. "I want you to understand this
clearly. Forget everything you've read. In this country, there is
no death penalty in many areas. Somehow they got the notion in this
country that killing someone for a crime is not a deterrent to more
crime. So they took away capital punishment and now they can't walk
their own streets. So I have brought you along because now that
this land has no death penalty, many people go around killing and
you are to protect me. Worse still are the laws regarding those who
are less than eighteen years old. They can kill without even going
to jail and American jails are warm and give three meals a day,
often with meat."
"They must have millions committing crimes to get in," said
Nathan in astonishment, because only when he joined the NKVD did he
eat meat regularly. That was food for ruling Communists, not for the
masses.
"They have millions committing crimes," said Spesk. "But let me
warn you about any idea of committing a crime to get into one of
their jails. We can exchange prisoners for you and then you will go
back to a Russian jail. And we kill, friend. And not all that
quickly for defectors."
Nathan said he had no intention of defecting.
"Which brings up, Nathan, why I, personally am here. Now you
must already be thinking how stupid Americans are. And this is very
true. They are stupid. If you tell Americans something is moral,
they will cut their own throats for it. Except, sometimes, certain
people stop them."
"Who?" demanded Nathan in the back seat of the car parked under
a train that went above them on rails very high up. It was an
American elevated train that some of their cities had. Every time a
train passed, Nathan trembled because he thought the train might
fall. Buildings fell down in Moscow so why shouldn't trains that
rattled so much fall also?
"We stop them," Spesk said. "You see, our generals do not
want the capitalists to cut their own throats because that would
make the generals look unimportant. They want it to appear as if
their hands are on the razor. Therefore, they have to do something and every time they do
something, they make the capitalists look smarter. Therefore, we
come here to the Bronx in America. To this slum."
"It looks all right to me," said Nathan, noticing the shops
open, their windows crammed with goods and foods, and how well
everyone appeared to dress, without great patches, and with shoes
without rags holding them on.
"By American standards it is a slum. There is worse yet, but
never mind. I go here myself personally because they would, if I
left it to the generals, they would write reports that said
everything so no matter what happened, they would have predicted
it. Our generals are as stupid as American generals. As a matter of
fact, they are identical. A general is a general is a general which
is why when one surrenders, he has dinner with his conqueror. They
are all identical. So you and I are here to see what all this fuss
is about and then we will figure out what we will do about it and
when we return to Mother Russia, we will both be heroes of the
Soviet Socialist Republics, yes?"
"Yes," said Nathan. "Heroes." And he thought how nice it would
be to shoot up between the railroad tracks and get a kneecap or the
groin. The groin was a wonderful place to shoot people except that
they died only sometimes. The colonel still held his gun. But he
would have to give it back when they saw muggers.
"Mugger," said Nathan happily, and pointed at a man with a blue
cap and a blue suit who had a whistle in his mouth and wore white
gloves and stood in the middle of a very large and wide street with
high buildings all around. He would have made a wonderful target.
There was even a shiny silver star on his chest. Nathan could hit
that star.
"No. That is a black policeman," said Spesk. "You are thinking
of nigger, not mugger. Nigger is a word Americans who are black do
not like to be called."
"What do they like to be called?" asked Nathan.
"That depends. It is always changing. Once it was Negro and
black was bad, then it was black and Negro was bad, then it was
Afro-American, but it is never nigger. Many of the muggers are
black though. Most are."
"But don't the racist police shoot black nigger Afro-Americans
all the time? Negroes?"
"Obviously not," said Spesk. "Or there wouldn't be the mugging
problem."
"I hate racists," said Nathan.
"Good," said Spesk. As he calculated, the building they were
looking for would be toward the main center of the city which was
called Manhattan, yet still in an outlying district called the
Bronx.
"I also hate Africans. They are ugly and black. I want to vomit
when I see something so ugly and black," Nathan said, and spat out
the window. "Someday socialism will end racism and blacks."
The first thing that told Spesk they were near the area was a
yellow-striped roadblock. Instead of going closer, he veered off
the large American street down a hill into a residential area. If
all the reports were true, anyone turning into these roadblocks
passed the very casual and very armed American lounging around,
would be photographed, and perhaps even stopped and questioned.
There were better ways to penetrate in America. One did not have
to have expensive spies worming their way into the innards of the
defense establishment. There were cheaper and easier ways. One did
not have to play spy all the time in America.
So when Spesk saw the garbage stacked neatly in cans along the
curb, he realized he was in a safe enough neighborhood to park. He
found a tavern and told Nathan not to talk.
Spesk himself had been one of the bilingual children. Right
after the Second World War, the NKVD began nurseries where children
learned English and Chinese almost as soon as Russian, so that they
would not only speak without accents but would think in the foreign
languages also. Children, it had been discovered, learned to
duplicate sounds exactly, while grownups could only reproduce
sounds they had learned in their childhood. All of which meant
Spesk could walk into Winarski's Tavern, just off the Grand
Concourse in the Bronx of New York City, America, and sound as if
he came from Chicago.
He ordered a beer, fella, and wondered, fella, how business was,
fella, and gee, golly, what a great looking bar the guy had here,
and by the way what were all those yellow barricades doing on the
other side of the Concourse?
"Buildings. Tearing down. Niggers there," said the bartender
whose English lacked Spesk's precision and clarity.
"Why are they tearing down a building, pal? Huh? How come?"
asked Spesk as if he had worked his way through Douglas MacArthur
High School by delivering Chicago Tribunes.
"They tear down. The politicians. They tear down, they build up."
"That's going up?"
"Nothing. Men there with guns. I bet drugs. They looking. I bet
heroin," said the bartender.
"A lot of men?"
"Three blocks around. Cameras too. In apartments. You don't need
to go there. Niggers over there. You stay here," said the
bartender.
"You bet I will," said Spesk. "Say, was there anything in the
papers about it? I mean, that's sort of wierd, isn't it, tearing
down a building with a lot of guys with guns standing around?"
"Drugs I bet. Heroin. Does he want a drink?" asked the
bartender, nodding to Nathan. Nathan stared behind the bar. Nathan
drooled.
"You have a gun back there," said Spesk. "Please put it out of
sight." He slapped Nathan on the shoulder and put his tongue over
his lips to indicate he wanted silence.
Spesk spent the afternoon in the bar, buying drinks
occasionally, playing a game of darts, and just chewing the fat
with all the nice guys who came and went, fella, nice to see you,
catch you again next time.
There had been a wounding of a young black there and some black
minister had made a fuss, someone told Spesk. Guy's name was
Wadson, Reverend Josiah. Wadson had a police record for breaking
and entering, procurement, assault with a deadly weapon, rape,
assault with intent to kill, even though the police had orders from
City Hall to keep it quiet.
"I bet you're a cop, right?" asked Tony Spesk, alias Colonel
Speskaya.
"Yeah. A sergeant," said the man.
Tony Spesk bought the guy a beer and told him the problem with
New York City was that the cops' hands were tied. And they didn't
get paid enough.
The sergeant thought this was true. God's honest truth. What
Colonel Speskaya did not tell the sergeant was that the municipal
in Moscow felt the same way, as did the London bobby and the
Tanzanian people's constable.
"Wonder what all that stuff is over there? On Walton Avenue, is
it?"
"Oh, that," said the sergeant. "Hush-hush. They moved the CIA
in, about eight days ago. It was a fuckup."
"Yeah?" said Tony Spesk. Nathan eyed the little revolver in the
sergeant's belt. He moved a hand out toward it. Spesk slapped the
hand away and pushed him toward the door, motioning to their car.
Spesk did not want to tell him to get out in Russian.
Back at the table, the sergeant told Spesk that he had a friend
who knew one of the CIA guys there and everything was fouled up.
Everything. They had been too late.
Too late for what? asked Spesk, Tony Spesk, Carbondale,
Illinois appliance salesman. As with most rummies, an hour and a
half of drinking had made Spesk a lifelong friend of the police
sergeant. Which was how he was introduced as "my buddy, Tony" to
another friend and how they all decided to go out for a night on
the town because Tony had an expense account. And they took Joe
with them.
Joe-you had to promise not to breathe a word of it-was an
operative for the CIA.
"You're full of shit," said Tony Spesk.
"He is," said the sergeant with a wink.
They went to a Hawaiian restaurant. Joe had a Singapore Sling.
He saved the little purple paper umbrellas they put in the drinks
to make them cute enough to charge $3.25 for them. When Joe had
collected five of those umbrellas with Tony paying, he had the
damndest story to tell.
There was this German engineer. Frigging Kraut. Did he tell
everybody that the guy was a German? Yeah? Okay. Well, he invented
this thing, see. Whaddya mean, what thing? It was secret. Like a
secret weapon. Invented it right in his Kraut cellar or attic or
something.
Back during Double-U Double-U Two. Don't tell anybody because
it's a secret. Now where was he?
"What kind of weapon?" asked Tony Spesk.
Joe inhaled the rummy fumes from the Singapore Sling. "Nobody
knows. That's why it's a secret. I got to piss."
"Go in your pants," said Spesk with authority. The sergeant had
passed out already and no one noticed that Spesk wasn't really
drinking.
"All right," said Joe. "Just a minute. Okay. That takes care of
that. Maybe this thing reads minds, nobody knows."
"Did you find it?" asked Spesk.
"Ooooh, it's wet," said the man earning thirty-two thousand
dollars a year to protect America's interests around the world
through his mental superiority, cunning, and self-discipline.
"It'll dry," said Spesk. "Did you find it?"
"It's too late," said Joe.
"Why?"
"Because I've gone already," said the agent for the most
hooplaed secret service since Nero's Praetorian Guard.
"No. Why was it too late for the secret weapon?"
"It was gone. We couldn't find it. We only found out it existed
because the East Germans showed up looking for it."
"And they didn't tell," said Spesk. There would be some dues to
pay for this treachery toward Russia. Obviously some of the old
Gestapo working now with East Germany had remembered the dead man's
name and told how he had invented some kind of device, and the East
German secret police went looking for it, without telling the
Russian NKVD, and the Americans saw the East Germans looking and
they looked, and then everybody went looking.
Of course, there was a possibility that America had planted
something in that neighborhood to draw out spies from other
countries, but Spesk dismissed that. If they caught you, they would
hold you for a trade. Gone were the old Cold War illusions of being
able to permanently keep other countries' operatives out of your
own country.
Why bother? There was just too much traffic. They would monitor
it; they wouldn't stop it. No. The story about the device was real.
At least the Americans thought so. But why so much fuss? Thirty
years old, the machine could not have had much practical
application. Thirty years ago, there hadn't been lie detectors,
bio-feedback machines, sodium pentothal. A whole trip sneaking into
America wasted for just a nonsense device. Spesk almost laughed.
For what? To look into people's heads and see what went on? Usually
it was just disconnected gibberish.
Outside, Nathan slept in the back seat of the car. American
traffic was inordinately heavy outside the restaurant. No. It was
normal. Spesk was judging it by Moscow standards where there were
few cars. Spesk was bothered.
The CIA man, Joe, had had a night off. His operation had started
only ten days before. This wasn't a night off. CIA tours went on
for a minimum of twenty days and, as often as not, until a mission
was completed.
Joe had a night off because the mission was over. The Americans
had not found what they were looking for and they were just pulling
out the CIA.
Spesk would have to look for himself.
Spesk did not often worry but tonight he was worried. He woke up
Nathan and gave him his gun.
"Nathan, I am giving you the gun. Do not shoot it at anyone just
yet because you will have to use it soon enough. I do not want us
hiding the gun because you shoot some stranger, when you may have
to use it to save our lives very soon."
"Just one, now?" asked Nathan.
"None, now," said Spesk.
As he thought, he drove his large smooth American car into the
area that had been sealed off by yellow painted roadblocks. The
roadblocks were gone now.
It was one a.m. Black teenagers roamed the street. A few tried
to break into their slow-moving car but Spesk had Nathan with him.
And just showing the gun kept them away.
Spesk slowed the car at the site where the building had been
torn down. He noticed a large hole in the ground. He left the car
with Nathan out behind him, holding the gun. They had excavated,
these Americans. They had excavated and still not found it.
Spesk's keen eyes noticed the small marks at the edge of the
lot. They had excavated with chisels. Therefore the device was
small. If it existed. If it was worth anything.
And then there was the shot behind him.
Nathan had done it. He had not fired to protect them. He had
shot at an Oriental in glaring yellow kimono across the street and
now, the white man who was with the Oriental was moving across the
street.
Spesk did not have time to wonder what another white man was
doing in this neighborhood. The white man moved too quickly for
that. Nathan fired again and it seemed as if it was aimed right at
the oncoming chest. There was no way Nathan could have missed.
And yet the thin white man was at him and virtually through him
by the time the shot stopped ringing in Spesk's ear. The white
man's hands hardly seemed to move, yet they were out and back and
Nathan's dark skull collapsed beneath the man's fingertips and his
brains went shooting out the other side as though popped from a cookie gun.
"Thank you," said Spesk. "That man was about to kill me."
CHAPTER FOUR
"Anytime I can, I'm glad to help," said Remo to the blond man,
who showed an amazing coolness for someone who had moments before
feared for his life. The dark-haired man with a gun lay very
finally on the sidewalk, his mind not troubling him because it was
spread in a fanlike pattern of brain just beyond his head like a
sunrise. The slum smelled of that same strange old coffee-ground
flavor Remo noticed in slums all over. They all smelled of it, even
in areas that didn't use coffee. A sticky early summer coolness
blew down Walton Avenue. Remo wore his usual slacks, loafers, and
tee shirt.
"What's your name?" Remo asked.
"Spesk. Tony Spesk. I sell appliances."
"What were you doing out here?"
"I was driving along downtown and that man broke into my car,
stuck a gun in my neck, and ordered me ta drive here. I guess he
decided to shoot at you when he saw you. So thanks, pal. Thanks
again."
"You're welcome," Remo said. The man was overdressed. His tie
was pink. "That your car?"
"Yes," said Spesk. "Who are you? A policeman?"
"No. Not that," Remo said.
"You sound like a policeman."
"I sound like a lot of things. I sell diet gelatin. I sell
strawberry and chocolate and cocoa almond cream."
"Oh," said Spesk. "That sounds interesting."
"Not as interesting as tapioca," Remo said. "Tapioca is a
thrill." The man was lying of course. He had not come down to the
states from Canada-the car had Canadian plates-to sell appliances.
The man behind him had left the car a good time after good old Tony
Spesk, to provide cover. And this was evident because the man had
been more interested in roofs and windows than in the man he was
supposed to be threatening.
And then the man had seen Chiun and wheeled for a shot. There
was no reason for that shot. He didn't know who Chiun was, or Remo.
He just shot, which was strange. But the dead dark-haired man
belonged to yellow-haired Tony Spesk. There was no doubt about
that.
"Do you need some help?" Remo asked.
"No, no. Do you need some help? Say, fella, I like the way you
moved. You a professional athlete?"
"Sort of," Remo said.
"I can pay you double. You're not young. You're at the end of
your career."
"In my game," Remo said, "young is fifty. What do you want me
for?"
"I just thought a man with your abilities might want to make
himself some good money, fella. That's all."
"Look," said Remo. "I really don't believe anything you've said,
but I'm too busy to keep an eye on you, so just so I'll recognize
you at a distance and maybe slow you up a little…" Remo let
his right palm slap down at the man's knee, very gently.
And Spesk, standing there, remembered when a tank had thrown a
tread and it had taken off an infantryman's knee. The calf was held
to the thigh by a strand. The tank tread had shot off so fast, he
had hardly seen it. This man's hand moved faster and there was a
searing, emptying pain at his left knee, and even as he dropped,
gasping in pain; he knew he wanted this man for Mother Russia.
This man would be more valuable than any silly toy created thirty
years ago. This man moved in a way Spesk had never seen before. It
was not something better than any other man; it was something
different.
And at twenty-four, and the youngest colonel in the Soviet, he
was probably the only officer of that rank who would dare make the
decision he made now, going down to the sidewalk, his left leg
useless. He was going to get that man for Russia. The dunderheads
in the higher ranks might not understand immediately, but
eventually they would see that there was an advantage in this man,
offered by no machine or device.
Spesk crawled, crying, to his car and jerkily drove away. He
would find compatriots in New York who could arrange for medical
care. It was not safe to lie wounded in this area, not without
Nathan for protection.
Remo walked back to his car. A young black boy hopped around,
clutching his wrist. Apparently he had attempted to pull Chiun's
beard and had been immediately disappointed to find out here was
not a frail old rabbi.
"What depths your nation has sunk to. What indescribable
horrors," said Chiun.
"What's the matter?"
"That thing dared touch the body of the Master of Sinanju. Have
they not been taught respect?"
"I'm surprised he's alive," Remo said.
"I have not been paid to clean the streets of your cities. Have
you not had enough of this country, a country where children would
dare touch the Master of Sinanju?"
"Little Father, there are things that trouble me about my
country. But not fear for your person. There are other people out
there though, people without your skills, who are not protected as
you are by your skills. Smith is worried about some gadget that
somebody invented. But I am worried because an old woman has been
killed. And it doesn't matter to anyone. It doesn't matter," said
Remo and he felt the blood run hot up his neck and his hands
trembled and it was as if he had never been taught to breathe
properly. "It's wrong. It's unjust. It goddam stinks."
Chiun smiled and looked knowingly at his pupil.
"You have learned much, Remo. You have learned to awaken your
body in a world where most people's bodies go from mother's breast
to grave without ever the breath of full life. Hardly is there a
man to challenge your skills. Yet no master of Sinanju, for century
upon century, has had skill enough to do what you wish to do."
"What is that, Little Father?"
"End injustice."
"I don't want to end it, Little Father. I just don't want it to
flourish."
"Be it enough that in your own heart and your own village,
justice triumphs."
And Remo knew he was about to hear the story of Sinanju again,
how the village was so poor that the babies could not be supported
during the lean years and had to be put to sleep in the cold waters
of the West Korea Bay. Until the first Master of Sinanju many centuries
before had begun to rent out his talents to rulers. And thus was
born the sun source of all the martial arts, Sinanju. And by
serving well the monarchs, each Master saved the babies. This was
Remo's justice.
"Each task you perform with perfection feeds the children of
Sinanju," Chiun said.
"They're a bunch of ingrates in Sinanju and you know it," said
Remo.
"Yes, Remo, but they are our ingrates," said Chiun, and a long
fingernail stressed the point in the dark night.
It was dark because the neighborhood's street lamps had been
torn down when the people discovered they could sell pieces of the
new aluminum poles to junkyards. There had been a television
special on the darkness in the slums, comparing it to a form of
genocide, whereby the system stole light from the blacks. A
sociologist made a detailed study and blamed the city for being in
collusion with the junkyards to put up lights that could be torn
down without too much effort. "Again, the blacks are victims," the
sociologist had said on television, "of white profits." He did not
dwell on who did the tearing down or whose taxes paid for the lamp
posts in the first place.
Remo looked around the street. Chiun slowly shook his head.
"I'm going to find out who did in Mrs. Mueller," Remo said.
"And then what?"
"Then I am going to see that justice is done," Remo said. "Aieee," wailed Chiun. "What a waste of a good
assassin. My precious work and time squandered in fits of emotion."
Ordinarily Chiun would seclude himself in a cloak of silence upon
hearing such Western nonsense.
But this time he did not. He asked what sort of justice Remo
sought. If it were youngsters who killed the old woman, then they
took but a few years of her life. Should he take many years of
their lives? That would be unjust.
The body of the man Remo had killed lay on the sidewalk. Police
would come in the morning, thought Remo. Just as people had seen
him from the windows, there must have been people who had seen the
killers or killer come out of Mrs. Mueller's house. Or if it were a
gang, one of them must have talked.
Smith had given Remo some details about the gadget he was
looking for and about Gerd Mueller's work in Germany. The only
thing mentioned about the old woman's death was that it was
apparently not done by anyone important.
"You," said Remo to a fat woman leaning out the window, her
large black globular breasts pushed up over her fat black arms.
"You live there?"
"No. Ah just comes down here to see how the colored lives."
"I'm willing to pay for information."
"Brother," she said. She had a deep throaty voice. "That makes
you down home people."
Remo offered a five and that was taken and the woman asked where
the rest was. And Remo held up two hundred-dollar bills very close
to her face and she made a goodly snatch at the bills, but Remo
lowered them, then raised them, giving her the feeling that she had
grabbed at the bills but they had dematerialized for a moment. It
was so amazing to her that she tried again. And then again.
"How you do that?" asked the woman.
"I got rhythm," said Remo.
"What you wanna know?"
"There was an old woman, a white woman."
"De Missus Mueller."
"That's right."
"She daid. I know that the woman you want 'cause everybody axes
about her."
"I know that. But do you know anyone who went into that house
that day? What do you hear on the street?"
"Well, now, I been axed that a lot. And I been real fine at
that. I tells them nothing. It funny they axes so much, 'cause it
only a killing."
"Did you know her?"
"No. De whites don' usually go out, 'cepting 'bout de ungodly
hour."
"When's that? The ungodly hour?" asked Remo.
"Nine o'clock in de morning," said the woman.
"Do you know who operates around here? What sort of gangs? Maybe
they know more things. I pay good money."
"You want to know who kill her, white boy?"
"That's what I want."
"De Lawds."
"You know that?"
"Everybody know that. De Lawds, dey got dis street. It theirs.
Their turf. Dey gonna get you too, white boy, lessen you come
inside, you and that funny-looking yellow friend of yours."
Remo offered up the bills again and this time he let her hand
close on them. But he held the bottoms of the two bills.
"How come you can lean out of that window in safety, leaving it
open and all that?" Remo asked.
" 'Cause I black."
"No," said Remo. "Punks will do it to anybody weak enough. Your
skin doesn't protect you."
" 'Cause I black and I blow they muthafucking heads off," she
said, and with the other hand, she brought out a sawed-off shotgun.
"I gots my saviour here. I got one of them in the balls four years
ago 'bout. He lay on that sidewalk theah and hollered. Than I gives
him a bit of de ole Georgia Peach in de eyes."
"That's boiling lye?" asked Remo incredulously.
"The best. I keeps a pot boilin' all the time. Now you take you
whites. They don't 'stablish themselves as peoples what got to be
respected no more. I black. I speak the street language. Sawed off
in the balls and lye in the face and I ain' had no trouble sincet.
You and you funny-lookin' friend oughtta come in here for the
night. You gonna be like that whitey you killed 'cross the street.
They ain't no more white men on this block like they was yesterday.
No sir."
"Thank you, granny, but I'll take my chances. The Lords, you
say?"
"De Saxon Lawds."
"Thanks again."
"The policemens know about them. They knows who did it. The ones
who gets the body. It was real early so I wasn't about yet but they
comes out and they did that barbarous thing, over in that alley,
'cept they ain't no alley no more 'cause they takes the building
down. But they was an alley then. And some boys, they up real late
and they not thinkin' or nuffin' and they think it just a white
folks and not a policemans and the policemans does the 'trocity, he
shoots the boy in the arm. That the barbarousness of it."
Remo wasn't interested in the barbarousness of some black kid
getting shot when he tried to steal a cop's gun.
"Do you know the names of the cops who know who killed the old
woman?" he asked.
"Ah doan know de names of policemens. Ah doan truck wif dem. Ah
doan have no numbahs, no dope."
"Thank you, ma'am, and have a pleasant evening."
"You cute there, whitey. Watch you ass, y'hear?"
The headquarters of this Bronx Police Precinct was nicknamed
Fort Mohican. Sandbags covered the windows. Remo saw a patrol car
pull out of an alley with two illegal Russian Kalashnikov assault
rifles and hand grenades on the dashboard.
Remo knocked on the closed precinct door.
"Come back in the morning," said a voice.
"FBI," said Remo, juggling through some identification cards he
always carried. He found the FBI card with his photograph. He held
it up to a small telescopic peephole in the door.
"Yeah, FBI, what do you want?"
"I want to come in and talk," said Remo. Chiun looked around
with disdain.
"The mark of a civilization," Chiun said, "is how little its
people need to know about defending themselves."
"Shhhh," said Remo.
"Is there someone out there with you?"
"Yes," said Remo.
"Move fifty yards away or we'll start lobbing mortars."
"I want to talk to you."
"This is a New York City police precinct. We don't open till
nine a.m. for visitors."
"I'm from the FBI."
"Then tap our phones from Downtown."
"I want to talk to you."
"Did the patrol make it out safely?"
"You mean that police car?"
"Yes."
"It did."
"How did you get here at night?"
"We got here," said Remo.
"You must have had a convoy."
"No convoy. Just us."
"Look around. Is anybody loitering nearby? Anybody watching
us?"
Remo turned and looked. "No," he said.
"Okay. Get in here fast." The door opened a crack and Remo eased
his way in, followed, by Chiun.
"What is this old guy, a magician? Is that how you got here?"
asked the policeman. He had dark black hair but his face was
fraught with tension and age. He kept his hand on his pistol. The
officer wanted to know who Chiun was in those strange robes. He
wanted to see if Chiun had a concealed weapon. He thought Chiun was
a magician and that was how the two got through to Fort Mohican.
His name was Sergeant Pleskoff. He had been promoted to sergeant
because he had never fired at what was called "a Third World
person." He knew a lot about crime. He had seen hundreds of
muggings and twenty-nine homicides. And he was very close to his
first arrest.
He was the new breed of American police officer, no longer a
racist, hard-nosed bully but a man who could relate to his
community. The other officers liked Sergeant Pleskoff too. He made
sure their pay records were always in order and he wasn't one of
those narrow-minded, old-fashioned annoying sort of sergeants who,
when you were 'on duty, actually expected you to be in the state of
New York.
Pleskoff kept Remo and Chiun covered with two machine guns set
up on desks surrounding the front door.
Remo showed his identification.
"You probably don't know that the CIA is handling that thing on
Walton Avenue," Pleskoff said.
"I'm not here about the thing on Walton Avenue. I'm here about
the woman who was killed. The old woman. She was white."
"You have your nerve," said Pleskoff angrily. "You come in here
and expect a New York City police precinct to be open at night,
just like that, in this kind of neighborhood, and
then you ask about the death of some
old white lady. Which old white lady?"
"The old white lady who was tied to her bed and tortured to
death."
"Which old white lady who was tied to her bed and tortured to
death? You think I'm some kind of genius that remembers every white
person killed in my precinct? We have computers to do that. We're
not some old-fashioned police force that loses its cool just
because someone gets mangled to death."
Pleskoff lit a cigarette with a gold lighter.
"Can I ask a question? I used to know a lot of cops," said Remo,
"and I never used to hear talk like this. What do you do?"
"Establish a police presence in the community which relates to
the needs and aspirations of the inhabitants. And, I guarantee,
every officer in this precinct has been sensitized to Third World
aspirations and how… don't walk in front of the peephole so
much… sometimes they'll come up and put a shot in the
peephole…"
"There's no one outside," said Remo.
"How do you know?"
"I know," said Remo.
"That's amazing. There are so many things in the world that
amaze one. The other day I saw some squiggles on a piece of paper
and do you know what they were made from? The human finger pads
have oil on them and when you touch something, it makes a pattern,
much like a linear Renoir interpretation of Sudanese sculpture.
It's oval," said Pleskoff.
"It's called a fingerprint," Remo said.
"I don't read mystery fiction," Pleskoff said. "It's
racist."
"I heard you people here know who killed an old white woman,
Mrs. Gerd Mueller, on Walton Avenue."
"Walton Avenue, that would be either the Saxon Lords or the Stone Shieks of Allah. We have a wonderful Third
World program that relates to indigenous community peoples whereby
we are the extension of their aspirations. We have an excellent
program that teaches how the white world exploits and oppresses the
black world. But we had to postpone it because of the Downstate
Medical Center."
"What did they do?" asked Remo.
"With typical white insensitivity, they announced that they were
buying human eyes for an eyebank. Did they realize, did they even
care about the effect that would have on young indigenous Third
World peoples who live here? No. They just let the word out that
they would pay for eyes donated. They carelessly didn't specify
that the donations should be from dead people. And we lost our
program for awhile."
"I don't understand," said Remo.
"Well, the police lieutenant who gave the lecture on how the
black person is always robbed by the whites, he came in here with a
pair of eyes thrown right in his face by a Third World youth who
had been promised so much by the Downstate Medical Center. It
destroyed our good rapport with the community."
"What did?" asked Remo.
"The Medical Center ripped off the Third World again by refusing
to pay for the eyes. The proud young Afro-American Third World
black man, foolishly trusting the whites, brought in a pair of
fresh eyes that he had obtained, and the medical center ripped him
off by refusing to buy them. Said they wouldn't take a pair of
fresh eyes in a Ripple bottle. Can you imagine anything so racist
as that? No wonder the community is outraged."
Sergeant Pleskoff went on about the oppression of the Third
World as he showed Remo the computer system that made this precinct
twenty percent more effective than other New York City police
precincts.
"We are an anticrime impact area. This is where the federal
government has poured extra money into fighting crime."
"Like what?" asked Remo. He couldn't perceive any crime being
fought.
"For one thing, with the extra money we sent sound trucks into
the areas reconfirming the identity of Third World youth as
oppressed victims of whites."
"You're white, aren't you?" asked Remo.
"Absolutely," said Pleskoff, "and ashamed of it." He seemed
proud to be ashamed.
"Why? You had no more say in your becoming white than somebody
else does in his becoming black," Remo said.
"Or any other similar lesser race," said Chiun, lest racist
Americans confuse their lesser races with the better one which was
yellow.
"I'm ashamed because of the great debt we owe to the great black
race. Look," said Pleskoff confidentially. "I don't know the
answers. I'm just a cop. I follow orders. There are people who are
smarter than me. If I give the cockamamie answers, I get promoted.
If, God forbid, I should ever let on that a black family moving
onto your block isn't a blessing from Allah, I'd be cashiered. I
live in Aspen, Colorado myself."
"Why Aspen? Why so far away?"
"Because I couldn't get to the pre-Civil War South," said
Pleskoff. "Between you and me I used to root for the Rebels in
those Civil War movies. Aren't you sorry we won now?"
"I want to know who killed the old woman, Mrs. Gerd Mueller of
Walton Avenue," said Remo.
"I didn't know the FBI dealt in murder. What's federal about a
killing?"
"It is a federal case. It's the most important case in the last
two hundred years. It is very basic, as basic as the cave. The old
and the weak are to be protected by their young men. Until
recently, that's been the general mark of civilization. Maybe I've
been paid to protect that old lady. Maybe the money she turned out
of her pocketbook to pay my salary, your salary, maybe that just
owes her that her killer doesn't waltz away to some psychiatric
interview, if by some incredible accident he gets caught. Maybe,
just maybe now with one little old white lady, the American people
say 'enough.' "
"Gee, that's stirring," said Pleskoff. "To be honest, sometimes
I want to help protect old people. But when you're a New York City
cop, you can't do everything you want."
Pleskoff showed Remo the pride of the precinct, the main battle
weapon in the new seventeen-million mass-impact, high-priority,
anticrime battle. It was a $4.5 million computer.
"What does it do?"
"What does it do?" said Pleskoff proudly. "You say you want to
know about a Mrs. Mueller, Gerd, homicide?" Pleskoff pressed a
keyboard. He hummed. The machine spat out a stack of white cards
into a metal tray. They fell there quietly, those twenty cards
representing twenty deaths.
"Don't look so distraught, sir," said Pleskoff.
"Are those the elderly deaths for the city?" asked Remo.
"Oh, no," said Pleskoff. "Those are the Muellers. You ought to
see the Schwartzes and the Sweeneys. You could play contract bridge
with them."
Remo found cards for Mrs. Mueller and her husband.
"Homicide? Why is he in the homicide file?" Remo asked.
Pleskoff shrugged and looked at the card. "Okay, I see now.
Sometimes you'll have some old-timer who still believes in the
old-fashioned direct limited link of victim-crime-killer. You
know, the old way, criminal commits the crime, get the criminal?
The mindless visceral irresponsible reaction that often leads to
such atrocities as a police riot."
"Which means?" asked Remo.
"Which means, this officer, this reactionary racist as an act of
defiance against the department and his precinct mislabeled Gerd
Mueller's death a murder. It was a heart attack."
"That's what I was told," said Remo. "I thought so."
"So did everyone except that racist. It was a heart attack,
brought on by a knife injected into it. But you know how backward
your traditional Irish cop is. Fortunately, they've got a union now
and it helps enlighten them. You won't find them flying off the
handle anymore. Except if it's union business."
"Guess what?" said Remo. "You are about to identify a criminal.
You are about to take me to the Saxon Lords. You are going to
identify a killer."
"You can't make me do that. I'm a New York, City policeman. We
have union rules, you know."
Remo grabbed the lobe of Sergeant Pleskoff's right ear and
twisted. It caused pain. Pleskoff smiled because the pain made him
smile. Then he cried. Big tears came to his eyes.
"There's a very stiff penalty for assaulting a policeman," he
gasped.
"When I find one in this remnant of a city, I promise I will not
assault him."
Remo dragged the crying Sergeant Pleskoff from the stationhouse.
The patrolmen behind the machine guns threatened to shoot because,
in this case, it was legal.
"Don't think you're assaulting some ordinary citizen," yelled
one patrolman. "That's a police officer and that's a crime. What do
you think he is? Some rabbi or priest? That's a cop. There are laws
against doing things to cops."
Remo noticed a large dark stain spread over the blue crotch of
Sergeant Pleskoff. A New York City policeman had discovered to his
horror that he was going to have to go out in the street after
dark.
The night had cooled off. As soon as they were out of the
stationhouse, the door bolted behind them.
"Oh God, what have I done? What have I done?" moaned Sergeant
Pleskoff.
Chiun chuckled and said in Korean to Remo that he was fighting
against a wave, instead of moving with it.
"I won't be the only one who drowns, Little Father," Remo said.
And his voice was grim.
CHAPTER FIVE
Twisting an ear just before the tearing point is more secure
than a rein. It is also a more effective information-gathering
device. Keep the person who owned the ear just barely in pain-it
did not have to be a lot of pain-and the person would start
answering questions. On obvious lies, start the pain flowing again
so that the person himself would make his body into a truth
machine. It was not force that was required, but timing.
Sergeant Pleskoff, his right ear between Remo's fingers, thought
the streets looked strange at night.
"This is a beat," said Remo. "You're going to walk it now."
Three black forms hovered in a doorway. A young girl called out
at the door: "Ma, it's me. Let me in, you hear?"
One of the other dark forms was a young man. He held his hand to
the girl's throat. In that hand, he held a cheap dime store saw
with a pistol grip.
"That is a crime," whispered Remo, pointing across the darkened
street.
"Yes. Bad housing is a crime against Third World peoples."
"No. No," said Remo. "You are not an economist. You are not a
housing expert. You are a policeman. See. Someone is holding a saw
to that girl's throat. That's your business."
"I wonder why he's doing that?"
"No. You're not a psychiatrist," said Remo and he began to twist
Pleskoff's ear to the point of tearing. "Now think. What should you
do?"
"Picket City Hall for jobs for young Afro-Americans?"
"No," said Remo.
"Demonstrate against racism?" said Sergeant PleskofE, between
gasps of pain.
"No racism there, Sergeant Pleskoff. That's black on black,"
said Remo. One of the men at the door with the young girl spotted
Remo, Sergeant Pleskoff, and Chiun. Apparently he did not think the
trio was worth bothering about. He turned back to the door waiting
for the girl's mother to open it.
"Aw, right, Peaches," said the older man at the door. It was now
time for threats. "We jam de lye up Delphinia's twat. Y'heah? Now
you open dat mufu doah and spread yo' beaver 'cause it muvver and
daughter night. Bofe of you be pleasured for de night."
"It's apparently a double rape with probable robbery coming up
and I'd say a possible murder also," Remo said. "Wouldn't you,
Chiun?"
"Wouldn't I what?" asked Chiun.
"Say it's those crimes."
"A crime is a matter of law," said Chiun. "I see two men
overpowering a girl. Who knows what weapon she has? No. Crime
requires that I judge right and wrong and the right I know is the
way to breathe and move and live. So are they right? No, they are
all wrong for all of them breathe badly and move half asleep." Thus
spake Oliver Wendell Chiun.
"See?" said Sergeant Pleskoff desperately.
"Arrest the men," said Remo.
"I'm one, they're two."
"You have a gun," said Remo.
"And endanger my retirement, my advancement points, my clothing
allowance? They're not harming a policeman. That girl is too young
to be a policeman."
"Either you use your gun on them or I use it on you," said Remo
and released Sergeant Pleskoff's ear.
"Aha, you have threatened a police officer and are endangering a
police officer," yelled Pleskoffi and went for his gun. His hand
shot down to the black handle and closed on it and ripped the .38
Police Special with the delicious heavy lead slug, creased down the
middle to make a dumdum to splatter in his attacker's face. The
bullet was not only illegal for New York City policemen, it had
been made illegal for warfare by the Geneva Convention. But
Sergeant Pleskoffi knew he would only draw his gun in self-defense.
You needed it when you left Aspen. He supported laws against
handguns because he got advancement points for doing it. What
difference did another law make? This was New York City. It had
lots of laws, the most humanitarian laws in the country. But only
one was in effect and Sergeant Pleskoff was going to enforce it
now. The law of the jungle. He had been attacked, his ear had been
brutalized, he had been threatened, and that FBI man who had gone
bananas was going to pay for it.
But the gun seemed to float out of his hand and he was squeezing
empty air. The FBI man, in the too-casual clothes for an FBI man,
seemed to slide under and into the gun and then he had it. And he
was offering it back, and Pleskoff took it back, and tried to kill
him again and that didn't work either.
"Them or you," said Remo.
"Reasonable," said Sergeant Pleskoff, not quite sure whether
this would be a proper defense before a police review board. It was
just like a shooting range. Bang. The large one dropped, his head
jerking like it was on a chain pulley. Bang. Bang. And he blew the
spinal column out of the smaller one.
"I meant arrest them, you maniac," said Remo.
"I know," said Sergeant Pleskoff in a daze. "But I was afraid. I
don't know why."
"It's okay, ma," yelled the girl and the door opened and a woman
in a blue bathrobe peeked out.
"Thank the Lawd. You safe, chile?" she asked.
"De policemans, he do it," said the girl.
"God bless you, officer," yelled the woman, taking her daughter
safely inside and bolting and reinforcing the locks.
A strange feeling overcame Sergeant Pleskoff. He couldn't
describe it.
"Pride," said Remo. "Some cops have it."
"You know," said Pleskoff, excited. "We could get some of us
down at the station house, on our off-hours, to walk the streets
and do this sort of thing. In disguises, of course, so we wouldn't
get reported to the commissioner. I know the old-timers used to do
things like this, stop muggings and stuff, and shoot the shit out
of anyone who endangers anyone else. Even if it isn't a cop. Let's
get the Saxon Lords."
"I want to find out who did in Mrs. Mueller. So I've got to talk
to them," Remo said. "Dead men don't talk."
"Fuck 'em. Shoot 'em all," said Pleskoff.
Remo took his gun away. "Just the bad guys."
"Right," said Pleskoff. "Can I reload?"
"No," said Remo.
"You know, I may not even get into trouble for this. Nobody has
to know it was a' policeman who stopped a robbery and rape. They
could think it was a relative who shot up those two or maybe they
didn't pay a Mafia loan shark. Then there would be no fuss at
all."
This idea made Pleskoff happy. He was not sure whether the women
would talk. But if word ever got back to the Reverend Josiah Wadson
and the Black Ministry Council, then Pleskoff would lose his
retirement pay. Perhaps even be fired.
If that happened, maybe he could go independent, offer a novel
service of armed men protecting the unarmed. If this idea caught
on, why, people without guns might be able to walk New York City's
streets again. He did not know what this service might be called
but one could always hire an advertising firm. Perhaps
"Pro-tecta-Block." Everyone on a block could chip in to pay for it.
The men might even wear uniforms to distinguish themselves and let
those who might harm people on the block know that there was
protection there. It was a whiz-bang idea, thought Sergeant
Pleskoff, and the good Lord knew New York City could use it.
Outside a schoolyard of concrete, surrounded by a high cyclone
fence, Sergeant Pleskoff saw the dark blue denim jackets of the
Saxon Lords. There were twenty or thirty of them moving along the
fence. He did not have to read the lettering, even if he could on
this dark night. Twenty or thirty dark jackets had to be the denim
of the Saxon Lords. At first, he felt a fear of going on this
street without their permission. Then he remembered he had a gun he
could use. The man who had showed him the FBI Card held the gun for
him. Pleskoff asked to reload.
"Those the Saxon Lords?" asked Remo.
"Yes. My gun," said Pleskoff.
"You use it before I tell you, you'll eat it," Remo said.
"Fair enough," said Pleskoff. His mind was feverish with
possibilities for his unique Protecta-Block. The men protecting
people could carry guns too. Like the one he had. There might even
be a snappy name for these men in uniforms who carried guns and
protected people, thought the New York City policeman, but he
couldn't think of one right then. He filled the chambers of the gun
with bullets.
Chiun watched the American policeman, then the group of young
men. The young men walked with the confident arrogance of bullies.
It was natural for man to herd but when he herded, what he gained
in group strength he lost in individual courage.
"Who you?" demanded the tallest, revealing to Chiun and Remo
that the gang was really disorganized. When the biggest ruled, it
was a sign that physical prowess had to be used to gain leadership,
not cunning or agreement. It was the same, then, as a gathering of
strangers.
"Who am I, you mean," said Remo.
"Who you? Dat what I axed," said the tall one angrily.
"You want to know who I am. And I want to know who you are,"
said Remo.
"Dat mans need mannas," said the tall one.
"Manners, right?" said Remo. That's the word he thought it
was.
"Let me take him," whispered Sergeant Pleskoff to Remo.
"De sergeant, he shoulda tol' you who de Saxon Lawds is, man. Ah
sees de jive turkey, he wif you. We ain' got no street lights
cause'a white oppression and 'trocities against de Tird Worl'
Peoples. I gone be perfesser English when I learns to read. Head
ob de department. Dey gotta has niggas. It's de law. Whole English
'partment, biggest in de worl'. De blacks invent de English, de
whites done rob it from dems. You rip off, honkey."
"I'm not sure what you said but I understood that honkey part,"
Remo said, leveled two right ringers into the tall young man's
navel and, finding the spinal column joint, severed it. There was
hardly a whoosh from the collapsed lungs. The dark form doubled
over, its shaggy head plopping into its pop brand-new sneakers with
the Slam Dunk treads and the Super Soul super-sole of polyester and
rubber. The sneakers had red stars on the insteps. If the tall
young man had still had an operative nervous system, each eye could
have seen at microscopic close distance, right under the instep
star, the legend that the sneakers were made in Taiwan.
The nervous system also failed to pick up the loud metallic
sound of a .45 caliber automatic clacking to the pavement that cool
dark morning. The gun had come from the youth's right hand.
"Wha' happen? Wha', man?" The questions came from the young
Saxon Lords as their leader stood only up to his waist, and then,
in a slow moment, toppled forward in collapse, so that when he came
to rest his legs were neatly pressed on top of him.
"He daid?" came a moaning voice. "De man's do a 'trocity on de
brother."
"Shoot," said another. "I ain't seen nuffin'. Just another jive
honkey with Sergean' Pleskoff. Hey, Pleskoff, wha' that in you
hand?"
"No," said Remo to Sergeant Pleskoff. "Not yet." There were two
other guns of smaller caliber in the gang. Remo removed them, with
stinging pain, from their holders. After the fourth gang member to
fall in pain, the shouts about blood vengeance modified. On the
fifth Afro snapping back like a wild dust mop on a tight spring,
the tenor of the game changed from threats to obeisance, from
master to slave, from macho posturing to "no sirs" and head
scratching, and they were just standing here innocent at four a.m.,
minding their own business. Waitin' to see if some nice white man
should come along so they could help. Yessuh.
"Empty your pockets and put your hands up on that fence," said
Sergeant Pleskoff. He grinned with delirious pleasure. "I wish I
had twenty pair of those things. The kind of things that go on
wrists and lock. The whatchamacallits."
"Handcuffs," said Remo.
"Yeah, right. Handcuffs," Pleskoff said.
Remo asked about the house that had been torn down. Nobody knew
anything about the building. Remo broke a finger. And very quickly
he found out that the building had been in Saxon Lord territories,
the gang had hit the Muellers a few times, the man had been knifed,
but no one here had done the final one on Mrs. Mueller. Lordy, no.
No one here would do anything like that.
"Was it another gang?" asked Remo.
"No," came the answer. Remo broke another finger.
"All right," he said. "Who did Mueller? Who did the old
man?"
There were murmurings over exactly which old white man Remo
meant.
"De one dat cried, begged, and cried not to slam him no more?
Dat white man? Or de one whats bleed de carpets like puddles?"
"The one with the German accent," Remo said.
"Raht. De one dat talks funny," said one.
As near as Remo could determine, there had been two old white
men in that building. The Saxon Lords killed the first because he
wouldn't tell them where his insulin needle was hidden. The second,
seeing that they were about to successfully enter his apartment,
threw himself at them.
A young man grinned at how that seventy-year-old man tried to
fight.
"You were there?" Remo said.
"Ah was. He were funny, dat old man."
"Try a younger one," Remo said and wiped the grin out onto the
sidewalk in little white pellets of teeth and with his right hand
cupped like the top of a juicer, pushed the face into the
schoolyard fence like potatoes through a masher. The head stuck.
The body dangled. The fence quivered and it was established at this
point on 180th Street off Walton Avenue in the Bronx that frail old
white people struggling for life were not humorous matters.
"All right, now we'll try again. Who killed Mrs. Mueller?"
"Idi Amin," said one young man.
"I thought I warned you about joking," Remo said.
"I not joking. Idi Amin, he our leader, he de one you kills ober
dere." He pointed to where the gang's leader lay on the schoolyard
pavement like a closed-up jacknife.
"He did it? Mrs. Mueller?" asked Remo.
"Dat right, boss. He do it."
"Alone? Don't tell me alone. None of you could find your way
down a flight of stairs alone."
"Not alone, mistuh. Big-Big. He do it too."
"Who's Big-Big?" Remo asked.
"Big-Big Pickens. He do it."
"Which one of you is Big-Big Pickens?"
"He not here, suh. He away."
"Away where?"
"He go to Newark. When all de mens comes and starts looking
around de old people's building, Big-Big, he decide go Newark till
it safe to com? back."
"Where in Newark?" Remo said.
"Nobody know. Nobody find no one single nigger in Newark."
Remo nodded to that. He would wait for Big-Big. Sergeant
Pleskoff shined a small penlight on the cement sidewalk. It looked
as if someone had thrown a drugstore at the feet of the teenagers
leaning against the schoolyard fence. Pill bottles, envelopes with
white powder, doodads, and a small shriveled gray lump.
"What's that?" asked Pleskoff.
"A human ear," said Chiun, who had seen what they looked like in
China where bandit kidnapers sent first a finger asking for ransom,
and if the ransom was not paid, sent an ear signifying the
captive's death.
"Whose?" asked Remo.
"Mine," said a boy who could not be over fourteen years old.
"Yours?" asked Remo.
"Yeah. I got it. Offen de subway. It mine." Remo looked at one
side of the boy's head, then the other. Both his ears were
there.
"Ah cuts de ears. Dey mine."
"Enough," yelled Remo, rage surging through him, and he struck
dead center into the black face. But Sinanju was not a way of rage,
but of perfection.
The hand went with the speed of a nerve transmission but the
precision and the rhythm was jarred by the hate. The hand crushed
the skull and dug into the warm wet unused brain, but in piercing
the bone at such speed without the usual rhythm, a bone snapped and
the return of the hand slowed and it came back with blood and
pain.
"Enough," said Chiun. "You have misused Sinanju and now look.
Look at the hand I trained. Look at the body I trained. Look at the
angry furious wounded animal you have become. Like any other white
man."
Hearing that, one of the young blacks yelled, out of reflex:
"Right on."
Chiun, the Master of Sinanju, silenced this rude interruption of
a private conversation. It looked as if the long delicate
fingernails floated ever so slowly at the wide nose but when the
yellow hand touched the black face, it was as if the head had met a
baseball bat at full swing. He dropped and spattered like a fresh
egg being cracked into a hot frying pan.
And Chiun spoke to Remo. "Take one of these boys and I will show
you how futile and childish is your justice. Justice is beyond any
man and but an illusion. Justice? Have you done justice by wasting
awesome talents on these things, obviously of no use to anyone else
and even less use to themselves? What justice? Come."
"The hand doesn't hurt," said Remo. He held his shoulder so that
not even the resonance of his breathing should reach past his wrist
into that most delicate area of explosive pain. He knew his lie was
useless because he himself had been taught where a man pained. It
was visible in the body trying to protect it and his shoulder was
hunched over his right hand so that it hung vertical and still. Oh,
still, please, still, thought Remo, who had believed he had
forgotten pain like this.
"Pick one," said Chiun, and Remo pointed to a form in the
darkness.
So it was here that they left with Tyrone Walker, sixteen, also
known as Alik Al Shaboor, the Hammer, Sweet Tye, and three other
names, none of which, Remo would find out later, Tyrone could spell
the same way twice. Chiun and Remo also parted with Sergeant
Pleskoff who, carried away with his zeal for ending violence on the
streets, at 3:55 a.m. stopped a very tough-looking black man with a
bullet head and shoulders like walls. He was accompanied in a gold
Cadillac by four other blacks. The man made a sudden movement, and
Sergeant Pleskoff unloaded his .38 Special into the head of a
Teaneck orthodontist and the rest of the cars two accountants, a
rustproofmg representative, and the deputy superintendent of the
Weequahic Waterways Commission.
When Pleskoff heard about it on television the next day, he
worried about being discovered. Ballistics might be checked, just
like in Chicago. For shooting five innocent men in a car, a New
York City police officer could be suspended for weeks. But these
were black men. Pleskoff might lose his job entirely.
Tyrone left with the two white men. The yellow man was light
enough to be white anyhow. Tyrone didn't know. He threatened to do
harm to the two, so the white one with the hurt hand slapped him
with the other.
Tyrone stopped threatening. They took him to a hotel room. Oh,
that was the action these two queers wanted. Tyrone was not about
to be raped.
"Fifty dollar," said Tyrone. Otherwise it would be male
rape.
"The old man wants you and he doesn't want you for that," said
the younger white man who had done the 'trocity on the Saxon
Lords.
They asked Tyrone if he were hungry. He sure was. This big hotel
was right off the park in Downtown. It was called the Plaza. It had
big old fancy rooms. It had a real nice-looking eating room
downstairs. Like a Colonel Sanders except people brought the food.
It real good.
Alik Al Shaboor, ne Tyrone Walker, ordered a Pepsi and a
Twinkie.
The white man ordered Tyrone a steak and vegetables. He ordered
plain rice for himself. Why the white man order them things that
Tyrone he doan want?
"Because sugar does you no good," said the white man.
Tyrone, he watch de yellow man run dem long funny fingers over
the hurt finger ob de white man. It sure look funny but de white
man, he just settle down and de finger, it hurt him no
moah. Lahk magic.
The food came. Tyrone ate the bread and the crackers. The white
man, he tell Tyrone to eat everyfin on de plate. Tyrone let de
white man know what he can do wif de plate. De white man, he grab
Tyrone's ear. It hurt, real bad it hurt. Ooooweee. It hurt.
Tyrone real hungry. Tyrone eat it all. But all. Including the
white stringy, thing, that hard to cut.
In a stroke of reason, it dawned on Tyrone that if he rolled the
white stringy thing into balls after cutting it into strips, he
could swallow the white thing more easily.
"Don't eat the napkin, stupid," Remo said.
"Ah," said Chiun. "He does not know your Western ways. And that
is part of my proof that you cannot do justice. Even if he had
killed the old woman whom you did not know, but have taken such
cause for, his death could not bring her back to her life."
"I can make sure the killer doesn't enjoy his."
"But is that justice?" asked Chiun. "I cannot do justice, but
you Remo, many years away from even fifty years, you will do
justice." He nodded to the youth. "I give you this as typical. Its
name is Tyrone. Could you give this justice?"
Tyrone spat out the last strand of napkin. He sure wished the
white man had told him not to eat it right off.
"You," said Chiun. "Talk about yourself, for we must know who
you are."
Since the two men could hurt him physically and they weren't
teachers or cops who didn't mean anything to anyone, Tyrone
answered.
"Ah wants to go find my great ancestor kings, kings of Africa,
Muslim kings."
"You want to trace it back like Heritage?" asked Remo,
referring to a popular book of invention, how a black supposedly
had found the village of his ancestors. If a novel had had that
many factual errors, it would have been questioned, even for
fiction. This one sold as nonfiction, even though it had cotton
being grown in America before it was a crop, it had slaves being
brought directly to America instead of being shipped to the islands
first as was the real manner, and most laughably, it had a black
slave being shipped back to England for training, during a time
when any such slave would have been freed under English law. It was
now a textbook in colleges. Remo had read the book and admired the
writer's persistence. He himself did not know his heritage, who had
been left at an orphanage at birth.
This was one of the reasons that CURE had selected him as its
enforcement arm. No one would miss him. And in truth, he had no one
but Chiun. And yet in Chiun, he had everyone, his own heritage
which now joined with Sinanju, stretched back over thousands of
years. Remo didn't care whether Heritage was true or not.
He wanted it to be true. What harm could it do anyone if the book
were really nonsense? Maybe people needed it.
"Ah knows ah can find the great Muslim king whats my heritage if
ah gets the most difficult part of it. Ah can do it. Ah sho can do
it."
"What's the difficult part?" asked Remo.
"All de Saxon Lawds, we got that first hard part in going back a
hundred years. A thousand years."
"What hard part?" Remo asked again.
"We can get back to the great Muslim kings of Africa, oncet we
gets our fathers. Piggy, he got it closest of all. He know his
father got to be one outta three men. He real close."
Chiun raised a finger. "You will use your mind, creature. And
you will see before you an old white woman. There are two pictures
you will see. One, she closes the door and walks away. The other,
she lies dead at your feet. Still and dead. Now, which is a bad
picture?"
"Closin' de door, dat be bad."
"Why?" said Chiun.
"Cause she gots her money. Other way, she be daid and ah gots
her money."
"Is it not wrong to kill old people?" Chiun asked. He
smiled.
"No. Dey de best. You gets de young men, and dey can kill you.
Ole people, dey de best. No trouble, specially iffen dey
white."
"Thank you," said Chiun. "And you, Remo, would kill this one and
call it justice?"
"You're damned right," said Remo.
"This is not a person talking," said Chiun pointing to the young
black man in the blue denim jacket with Saxon Lords on the back.
"Justice is for persons. But this is not a person. Not even a bad
person. A bad person would do what this one has done, but even a
bad person would know it was wrong to do it. This thing has no idea
that it is wrong to hurt the weak. You cannot do justice to
something less than human. Justice is a human concept."
"I don't know," Remo said.
"He right," said Tyrone, sensing impending release. He had been
through family court thirteen times and he knew freedom when he saw
it.
"Would you kill a giraffe for eating a leaf?" asked Chiun.
"If I were a farmer, I'd sure as hell keep giraffes away from my
trees. I'd probably shoot them," Remo said.
"Perhaps. But do not call it justice. Not justice. You cannot
punish a leaf for reaching to the light and you cannot do justice
to a pear that ripens and falls off a tree. Justice is done to men
who have choices."
"I don't think this thing here should live," said Remo.
"And why not?" Chiun asked.
"Because he's a disaster waiting to happen."
"Perhaps," said Chiun, smiling. "But as I said, you are an
assassin, the strong deadly arm of emperors. You are not the man
who keeps the sewers flowing. That is not your job."
"No suh. You ain' de sewer man. De sewer man. De sewer man. No
suh, you ain' de sewer man." Tyrone popped his fingers to his
little jingle. His body bounced on the expensive gold and white
chair.
Remo looked at the young man. There were many like him. What
difference would one more make?
His right hand was numbed but he knew it had been set with more
skill than any bone surgeon, and he knew it was healing with the
speed of a baby's bone. When your body lived to its maximum, it
used itself more efficiently. The hand would heal but would he
anger again during work? He looked at his hand and at Tyrone.
"Do you understand what we're talking about?" Remo asked
Tyrone.
"Ah doan unnerstan' all dat jive talk."
"Well, jive on this, pal. I think I ought to kill you in return
for the crimes you've committed against the world, the worst of
which was being born. I think that's justice. Now Chiun here thinks
you should live because you're an animal, not a human, and justice
has nothing to do with animals. What do you think?"
"Ah thinks ah better get outta heah."
"Hold that thought, Tyrone," Remo said. "You're going to stay
alive for awhile, while I decide whether I'm right or Chiun's
right."
"Take yo' time. No sense hurrying."
Remo nodded. "Now, some questions. If something was stolen from
an apartment during a killing, where would it wind up?"
Tyrone hesitated.
"You're getting ready to lie, Tyrone," said Remo. "That's what
people do, not animals. Lie and you're people. Be people, and
you're dead, because I'll do justice on you. Understand?"
"Anything what gets stole, it goes to de Revin Wadson."
"What's D. Revin Wadson?" Remo asked.
"Not D. Revin," Tyrone said. "De revin."
"He means the reverend," Chiun said. "I have learned a great
deal about this dialect in the last hour."
"Who is he?" asked Remo.
"He a preacher, a big mucky-muck wit housing and like dat."
"And he's a fence?"
"Evybody gots make a libbin'."
"Chiun, who should be responsible for him?" Remo asked. "Who's
supposed to teach him that thieving and killing and rape and
robbery are wrong?"
"Your society should. All civilized societies do that. They set
standards that people should live up to."
"Like schools, parents, churches?" Remo asked.
Chiun nodded.
"You go to school, Tyrone?" Remo asked.
" 'Course ah goes to school."
"To read and things like that?"
"Ah doan read. Ah ain' gone be no brain surgeon. De brain
surgeons, dey read. You watch dey lips in de subways. Dey readin'
de get-outta-dem signs."
"You know anybody who reads without moving his lips?" Remo
asked.
"Not at Malcolm-King-Lumumba High School. You wants some
smartass honkey, dey reads up at Bronx High."
"There are other people in the world who read without moving
their lips. In fact, most readers don't."
"De Tom blacks. Uncle Tom, Aun' Jemima, dey apin' de whites. Ah
can count to a thousand, wanna hear me?"
"No," said Remo.
"One hundred, two hundred, three hundred, four…"
Remo thought about welding Tyrone's two lips together. Tyrone
stopped counting to a thousand by hundreds. He saw the glint in
Remo's eyes and he wasn't looking for pain.
When the phone rang in their suite upstairs, Remo answered.
Chiun watched Tyrone for here was something new. A creature that
looked human in form but had no humanity in its soul. He would have
to study this one and pass on his wisdom to the next Masters of
Sinanju so those Masters would have one less thing new to
encounter. It was the new things that could destroy you. There was
no greater advantage than familiarity.
"Smitty," said Remo. "I'm close to finding your gadget, I
think."
"Good," came the acid voice. "But there's something bigger out
there. One of our foreign operating agencies picked up something in
Moscow communications. At first we thought Russia was ignorant of
all this, and then we found out they were a bit too cute. They sent
a man, A Colonel Speskaya."
"I don't know every spitting Russian ding dong," said Remo.
"Well, he's a colonel at age twenty-four and they just don't
make people colonels at that age. If that's any help."
"I got enough with my job without keeping up with Russian
administration," Remo said.
Chiun nodded sagely. The most American thing about Americans was
that they tried to change everything, especially when it worked
well enough already. Thus, seeing the beautiful handiwork of the
Master of Sinanju in transforming Remo, they constantly tried to
make Remo, the assassin, into something else. Not that the other
things were unworthy. But anyone with enough effort could become a
detective or a spy. It took special qualities to be an assassin. It
was good to see Remo resisting the obscene blandishments of Smith.
Chiun nodded at Remo, letting him know he was doing the right thing
in resisting Smith's nonsense.
"They sent the colonel," Smith said, "and they did it
beautifully. We thought they weren't interested in the Mueller
device at all, but they were. But now, our intercepts tell us they
found something better. Two instruments that are better and more
important than the Mueller thing."
"So now I'm not just looking for the device that the Mueller
family had, but I'm looking for a Colonel Speskaya and two new
weapons he's got his hands on?"
"Yes. Precisely," said Smith.
"Smitty. This job isn't worth spit." Remo happily hung up the
phone. When it rang again, he tore it out of the socket. When a
bellboy came up to check the phone out of order, Remo gave him
fifty dollars and told him to leave the suite of rooms alone. When
the assistant manager came up and insisted a phone be reinstalled,
Remo allowed as how life was hard and he wanted to get some sleep
and if he were bothered again, he would install the phone in the
assistant manager's face.
The suite was not bothered again that night. Remo locked Tyrone
Walker in the bathroom. With some newspapers on the floor.
CHAPTER SIX
The Reverend Josiah Wadson let his booming voice resonate out
over the auditorium in the Bronx. Outside long lines of moving vans
were parked, their engines stilled, their carriers locked. They had
distant license plates, from Delaware, Ohio, Minnesota, Wyoming,
but each had fresh canvas signs: "Affirmative Housing II, Rev. J.
Wadson, Executive Director."
Inside the auditorium, elderly white people sat listening to the
reverend. Box lunches of fried chicken and rich dripping ribs, with
crusty white bread, had been passed out and they drank milk and
coffee and soft drinks.
"I prefer tea and toast," said one woman with a twang that
crackled with age. She wore a delicate sapphire ring with small
diamond baguettes set in white gold, the sort of tiny delicacy of a
world even older than hers. She smiled and said please, because all
her life she had always said please. She could not remember not
saying it.
Nor would she ever fail to say thank you. It was a just and
proper thing. People should treat each other with respect, which
was why she was here today from Troy, Ohio.
There were good and bad in all races and if whites were needed
so that all men could be equal, then, like her great-grandfather
who fought to end slavery, so would she volunteer herself. And the
government was being very generous. They would pay half her rent
for a year. It was called Affirmative Housing II, and Rebecca Buell
Hotchkiss of Troy, Ohio looked forward to what she had told her
friends was a new challenge.
She was going to meet a whole new world of friends of
different-colored skin. If they were half as nice as Mr. and Mrs.
Jackson, her close black friends in Troy, why then she had just
stumbled into a windfall. When she thought of New York City she
thought of all the shows she could see. All the museums she could
visit.
Why, they had television in New York City on almost all the
channels. And the Botanical Gardens and the Bronx Zoo were within
just a few miles of where she would be living. Her furniture was
outside in one of the vans and here were other nice people from all
over America, going to show that America believed in brotherhood.
What could go wrong? Josiah Wadson was a reverend and he was
directing this lovely people program.
So she asked, with a very big please, for tea and toast. She did
not like ribs and chicken. It was too harsh for her queasy
stomach.
She asked this of one of the nice young men. She thought all the
people she had met were nice. And she refused to believe there was
anything evil about the reverend wearing a pistol. After all, there
were many racists around and as a little girl she knew how hard it
could be on Negro men at that time. Whooops. Black. She would have
to learn that was the nice thing to call them now. Whooops. You did
not refer to blacks as "them." She was learning.
She was surprised when she was refused tea and toast.
"You don' like ribs and chicken 'cause 'you a racist," said the
young man. He looked at her hand the way other young men used to
look at her bosom. It was the hand with the ring her grandmother
had given her.
"I used to love southern food," said Miss Hotchkiss, "but now I
have a queasy stomach."
This small commotion was heard on the stage of the auditorium by
Reverend Wadson. He had his pistol buttoned under his black jacket.
He wanted to know what the trouble was down there. The young man
told him.
"Well, let her have tea and toast. If she wants to deny the rich
black heritage being offered her for her pale white tea and toast,
let her. We on to an enrichment program for whites."
Wadson grinned a big licorice happiness as the auditorium
returned him polite applause.
"De white man, he need to complicate thing. It 'bout time, we
moralize him. We fight complication wif clarity. Evil wif morality.
We give de white oppressor a moral standard he never know."
The whites applauded with alacrity but not with enthusiasm. The
applause came and went like a dutiful blast from a pistol shot.
Loud and short.
"Affirmative Housing Two, it simple. No need to muggy up wif
high-falutiness. It simple as grits. Housin', it segregated.
Segregation, it against de law. All of you be criminals. Till now.
Now, you be paid to follow de law of de land. Law, it say you gotta
live wif nigg… with blacks," and on this note, Reverend
Wadson bellowed into glorious resonance.
"How looong, Oh Lawd, de black man gotta do de integrating? How
long, oh Lawd, de black man he gotta go integrating? No longer,
Lawd. Lawd, ah gots good news for you now. At long last, ah gots
good news for yo' bleedin' heart. Black consciousness and black
pride bring de oppressor 'round to do what legal and right. Whites,
dey gonna do de integrating."
And with a cautionary note to the ruler of the universe that the
whites had to be offered moving money to move into black
neighborhoods, the Reverend Wadson concluded by asking a blessing
on getting whites to do what they should have done from the
beginning.
Affirmative Housing II was quite simply integration of
neighborhoods using whites instead of blacks as the integrators,
and black neighborhoods instead of white ones as the areas to be
integrated. It was an experimental pilot project of Rev. Wadson's
Black Ministry Council, funded by the federal government. There was
six million dollars for the project. Urban economists call the
grant "so little they don't want it to work."
Of the six million dollars, two million went for consulting
fees, one million for the moving, two million for exploratory
research and nine hundred thousand dollars for "outreach, input,
and counterface groupings." The remaining one hundred thousand
dollars went to buy two buildings, the owner of which gave Reverend
Wadson an envelope with forty thousand dollars in it as a sales
commission, sometimes referred to, when indulged in by whites, as a
kickback.
The strategy sessions called workshops were conducted at resorts
in Trinidad, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Cannes, and Paris. There were
floods of consultants and consulting firms at one hundred dollars
per hour. Many of the finest New York City courtesans found
themselves giving advice on interrace counterfaces.
This auditorium was costing American taxpayers forty thousand
dollars in consulting fees. Besides Reverend Wadson, there were
black authorities and consultants sensitizing the white audience.
There was talk on Heritage, which showed blacks were good
and whites were bad and how ignoble whites had ruined noble black
men. The black speaker had written a review of this book and for
five thousand dollars he read his review.
It said he didn't know why the author bothered to give unworthy
whites such a worthy book. He blamed whites for not bringing up
blacks as Muslims. He said he didn't know why he even bothered to
talk to the whites, because nobody else cared for whites. Not in
the whole world.
The author carried a pocketbook and looked like a popeyed toad.
He smoked with a vengeance. Reverend Wadson thanked him and made
the audience thank him.
The program was named Affirmative Housing II because there had
been an Affirmative Housing I. The two million dollars for
consulting fees in this program had shown that Affirmative Housing
I had failed because the whites were inadequately sensitized to
black culture. Now they were being sensitized.
They all watched a film on how bad whites were to blacks in the
South before civil rights.
They watched a dance troupe perform "Revolutionary Black
Vanguard." It showed black revolutionaries killing white oppressors
like priests and nuns.
Miss Hotchkiss saw all this and told herself that perhaps she
had negative feelings because she wasn't sensitive enough.
A poet read about burning white venom wombs with black
righteousness. Burning houses down around whites. Revolution. No
more Jesus. Gimme Marx.
A comedian now calling himself a "conscience activist"
explained how the FBI had acted peculiarly during the assassination
of Martin Luther King. The FBI, said the comedian, had leaked out a
story that the good reverend didn't stay in black hotels. And out
of the goodness of the reverend's heart, when he heard this story,
he moved to a black hotel where he was assassinated. Therefore the
FBI was to blame. The comedian was paid three thousand dollars for
this lecture.
There was a picture of Field Marshal Doctor Idi Amin Dada,
President for Life, on stage and a recording of his voice telling
the audience that he really liked whites and that they shouldn't be
fooled by propaganda from whites.
Then there was the Interview for Afro News television, called
"Like It Really Is," and there was Reverend Wadson's serious face
and sonorous voice.
"We trying, Lawd, we trying, to counteract in this brief
afternoon years of racist propaganda." The female announcer said to
the camera whirring away that everyone agreed it was an uphill
fight to counteract racist propaganda. She said that if Reverend
Wadson were successful in his struggle, then there would be no need
for busing because then America would be integrated. "We all know
the reverend for his good fight against police barbarousness and
atrocities," she said.
Then the whites were ushered out of the auditorium and told to
smile at the cameras. But since Swedish television was late
arriving, the elderly whites were herded again back into the
auditorium. Then they were guided out again, but since there
weren't enough smiles, they were pushed back in and told to come
out again, smiling. A few fainted. Miss Hotchkiss kept going by
holding on to the man in front of her.
Someone yelled for them to smile. She tried to. Young black men
in black leather jackets stood in rows. The tired old people were
marched up to the rows of men and got threats that those who did
not smile would suffer.
Miss Hotchkiss heard words she had never heard before. She tried
smiling. If one were pleasant, if others knew you meant only
pleasantness, then certainly basic human dignity would prevail. An
old man from Des Moines began sobbing.
"It will be all right," said Miss Hotchkiss. "It will be all
right. Remember, all men are brothers. Didn't you hear how moral
blacks are? What do we have to fear from people who are morally
superior? Don't worry," she said but she did not like the way the
young black men eyed her sapphire ring. She would have taken it off
if she could. But it had not been able to slip off since she was
seventeen. She told herself it was such a small ring, scarcely a
few points of a carat. It had come over from England with an
ancestor, who had brought it west through the Erie Canal and down
into the Miami, Ohio valley, where good people had made good land
bountiful.
Her great-grandfather had gone to war and lost a leg to free
blacks from slavery. And the ring was his mother's, given to Miss
Hotchkiss over the passage of time. It was important, because it
tied her to her past. Yet now the woman, rich in years but poor in
the youthful sap that made climbing into a bus a simple procedure,
would very much have wanted to have left that ring with her
sister's child. She felt the ring endangered her life.
She was relieved to see a man with a collar get on the bus. He
had a round jovial face. He said he wanted everyone to hear his
version of the Good Samaritan.
"A man was walking along the road when another man jumped on him
and robbed him of everything and then demanded to know why he was
poor," said the man with the collar. Miss Hotchkiss was confused.
She remembered the Good Samaritan as helping someone. She didn't
understand.
"I see you're confused. You are the robbers. And the Third World
has been robbed by you. Whites have made the Third World oppressed,
poor by robbing them."
A man with silver hair raised a hand. He was an economics
teacher, he said. He had been teaching thirty years and was
retired. He said that while there were faults with colonization, it
was a fact that it did raise the life expectancy of the native
population.
"Poverty and starvation in the Third World is really just
slightly better than it's always been. They are living the life of
preindustrialized man. Nobody stole anything from them. They never
had it. Wealth is an invention of the industrial society."
"What about natural resources?" yelled the man with the collar.
"That's stealing on a massive scale. Robbing the inalienable right
to a resource."
"Actually, no," said the white-haired economics teacher,
patiently, as if explaining dry underwear to a bedwetter. "What
you're talking about are colored stones and things in the ground
that preindustrialized man has no use for anyhow. Industrialized
man not only pays him for it, but pays him to use his labor in
mining it or drilling for it. The problem is that preindustrialized
man has been exposed to the richer life of industrialized man and
naturally he wants it. But he's got to work at it. The fact is
nobody stole anything from anybody."
"Racist," screamed the man in the collar. "You're not allowed to
believe things like that. Out of the program."
"Fine. I just don't want this anyway. I found out I don't like
you people. I don't trust you people and I don't want anything to
do with you people," said the white-haired man, his voice
quivering.
"Get out," screamed the man with the collar and since the
television cameras had gone and would not record the moment, the
man was allowed to get off the bus, with veiled hints about his
never being able to recover his furniture again. Miss Hotchkiss
wanted to go with him. But there was the cherrywood cabinet that
Aunt Mary had given her and that table that had come up with the
family along the Erie Canal. It would be all right. She knew so
many nice Negro people in Troy, Ohio.
Had she given up the family furniture, Miss Hotchkiss might have
spared herself a death of horror. She was going to lose the
furniture anyway. The world was going to lose that furniture. The
economics teacher, with a wisdom people often get in the valley of
death, realized that there was a chance to get new furniture only
if he were alive.
In a program where it was mandatory to blame all whites for
everything and forbidden to blame any black for anything, he knew
the whites were becoming the new Jews for the new black Nazis.
He willingly gave up his entire wallet and emptied his pockets
at the door of the bus to a young black man. Did the young man want
his buttons? He could have them too.
Later, the New York City police would blame the disaster of
Affirmative Housing II on the late start of the buses toward the
multiracial living environments, which meant the two slum buildings
the program owned.
The buses and the vans got there at dark. The drivers of the
vans, later to be blamed by the mayor for cowardice, fled in a
group as night descended. The bus drivers hailed gypsy cabs.
And the white settlers were left in the buses parked in front of
the vans. A young black boy found he could jimmy open the side of
one of the buses. Gangs of black youths swarmed aboard and dragged
the elderly whites out of the buses. Some had to regrab because old
people's hair came out so easily. Miss Hotchkiss clung to one of
the metal legs of the seats welded to the floor.
But she could not hold when the boot stamped down on her wrist,
crushing old and fragile bone. The pain was young and new and she
shrieked, but hardly anyone heard her screams for mercy because
everyone was screaming.
She felt her right hand with the ring being lifted up and felt
herself thrown around as several young black men fought for
her.
Someone had gotten into the vans and was throwing the furniture
onto a giant bonfire of flame that roared almost as high as the
tenements around her. She felt a sharp tearing at her ring finger
and knew the finger was no longer there. She felt herself being
lifted up and the flames enveloped her, very yellow and burning
hot, so that there was a sudden blasting pain, and then,
surprisingly, nothing.
One black woman in a third-story apartment dialed 911, Police
Emergency.
"Get down here. Get down here. They're burning people. They're
burning people at Walton and 173rd."
"How many people are being burned?" asked the policeman.
"I don' know. A dozen. Two dozen. Oh, God. It terrible."
"Lady, we'll get down as soon as we can. We're understaffed.
We've got bigger disasters ahead of you."
"Dey burning' whites. Now will you get somebody down heah? Dey
got de Saxon Lawds, de Stone Shieks of Allah, all de gangs. It
horrible. Dey burning people."
"Thank you for reporting," came the voice and the phone clicked
off. The black women drew the curtains and cried. There were times
as a child in Orangeburg, South Carolina, when she couldn't go out
in the street safely because she was black. And that was bad. There
was no great joy in coming north, but there had been hope.
Now, just when the greatest hopes were being achieved, she
couldn't walk out in the streets except in the early morning. And
she did not relish the screams of whites any more than of
blacks.
She just thought that people ought to be left alone with a bit
of dignity, and if not dignity, at least a little safety. But she
didn't even have that. She opened an old family bible and she read
and she prayed for everyone. Someone had said there was a
lot of money spent fighting poverty. Well, she was poor and she
didn't see any of it. Someone said there was a lot of money spent
fighting racism. Well, if she were white and she were bused into
some of the trash that made her life miserable, she certainly
wasn't going to hate blacks less.
Now, if someone wanted to fight racism, they ought to have
decent whites meet decent, God-fearing black people. There was
nothing like decent people meeting decent people. When the screams
penetrated her room, she went into the bathroom. And when she could
still hear the screams of people being burned alive, she shut the
bathroom door and let the water run. And there she prayed.
Reverend Wadson prayed too. He prayed for a softening of white
hearts. He did this from a podium in a ballroom of the
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, rented by Affirmative Housing II, as an
antiracism workshop. To help fight racism, there was a ten-piece
band, three rock singers, and an open bar.
Television cameras focused on Reverend Wadson's massive
perspiring rutty face over the white collar. The eyes rolled and
the lips glistened under the ballroom lights. His nostrils flared
wide enough and round enough to hide a pair of giant immies in his
nose. Reverend Wadson was like a freight train, at first punching
out single thoughts at a slow steady pace and then rising in pitch
and speed. And what he said was that America was abandoning its
fight against oppression. But there was a way the fight could be
continued. How? Quite logically. By funding Affirmative Housing
III, with meaningful amounts of money.
"When de man, he lay down six million to solve three hundred
year of oppression, he sayin' ah doan wan' innegration to succeed.
No, suh. He sayin' in his six million ways, niggah, you go starve.
But de Third World, it know de man. It know he immoral. It'know de
rich black contribution to de world ain' gonna be ripped off by de
white man."
"So you're saying that the federal government's program is so
badly funded as to border on fraud," said the Swedish television
announcer, her hair as cool yellow as pale wheat stalks, her skin
the white smooth cream of the North people, her teeth even and
unravaged by cavity or brace. A shimmering black silk pants suit
highlighted full and ready breasts and driving derriere. Even while
she stood still, the black silk moved up and down her leg. Her
perfume enveloped Reverend Wadson.
"Dat exactly what I been sayin','' Wadson said.
"You have been so helpful, Reverend, to Swedish television," the
blond said. "I wish we could have more of your time."
"Who say you can't?" asked the reverend. He was a big man, at
least six-feet-four and he seemed to throw his whole body into her
face.
"Don't you have a lecture tonight on the beauty of black women?"
she asked. Reverend Wadson took twenty seconds to mouth the letters
on the name tag pinned to the beautiful rising black silk covering
what must be a mountain of white breast.
"Ingrid," he said, looking up to make sure by watching her face
that he had said it correctly. "Ingrid, I think sisterhood
powerful. Powerful. Powerful. I with you in sisterhood."
A black woman in stylish but hard-lined dashiki with elegant
barren copper jewelry around her long ebony neck and with short
hair in black rows, tugged at the sleeve of Reverend Wadson.
"Reverend, your lecture. Remember, you're a consultant to the
city on race relations."
"I busy," said Wadson and smiled at the blond.
"But you are part of the program. You are a consultant to the
city," said the black woman.
"Later," said Reverend Wadson.
"But your lecture is about the city's fight against racism,''
said the woman. She smiled politely but firmly at the Swedish
television announcer.
"Later, I said. We workin' international now," said Reverend
Wadson who placed a large hand on the silk-covered shoulder of
Ingrid. Ingrid smiled. Reverend Wadson saw her breasts peak under
the black silk. She wasn't wearing a bra.
"Reverend," said the black woman, her lips pursing. "There are
many people who want to hear you talk on beauty and black being
synonymous."
"Synonymous? Ah never calls it synonymous. Never. Black beauty
your basic beauty. It ain' synonymous. Too long, oh Lawd, has our
beautiful black beauties been called synonymous by white racists.
Ingrid, we gots get outta here and talk about racism and
beauty."
"Synonymous means 'the same as,"" said the black woman. "Black
is the same as beauty, beauty is black. Black is beauty."
"Right on," said Reverend Wadson, turning his back on the woman
and guiding Ingrid into his path.
"Reverend, New York City pays you forty-nine thousand dollars a
year for your lectures," said the woman tugging the back of
Wadson's dark ministerial coat.
"I busy, woman," said Reverend Wadson.
"Reverend, I'm not letting you go," said the woman.
"I be back, Ingrid. Doan you go nowhere, heah?"
"I will be here," said the Swedish beauty and gave Wadson a big
wink. The reverend went into an administrative room of the hotel to
talk to the black woman who was helping him in his lecture series
to colleges in the city.
"This only take a minute," said Reverend Wadson who had played
tight end for a black college in the south and was known to be able
to unfoot someone with one swipe. He slammed the black woman's head
against the wall. She dropped like a sack of soggy week-old
collards.
Wadson returned to Ingrid. A group of young blacks had gathered
around her. With bulk strength, Reverend Wadson cleared them away.
And still chuckling, he brought Ingrid to a conference room where
he finally got his hands on the black silk and undraped it away
from the soft white body that he covered with his anxious tongue.
And just before his triumph, she wriggled away and he lunged for
her. But she was too fast. She claimed he really didn't want
her.
Want her? Was that a droop of disinterest, Wadson wanted to
know?
She consented but only after he promised his help.
"Sho. Anyfing," panted the Reverend Wadson. "First dis."
Ingrid smiled her perfect smooth-skinned smile. Reverend Wadson
thought at that moment she needed no skin lighteners. Never a
lotion on that face.
She asked to kiss him.
He allowed as that would be all right.
Down went the zipper of his trousers. Ingrid reached up and
brought her long hair behind her head in two handfuls.
Reverend Wadson lunged forward, body and desire out of
control.
Suddenly Ingrid pulled back.
"Drop your gun, Reverend," she said and gone was the lilt of
Sweden from her voice.
"Hah?" Wadson said.
"Drop that gun you're carrying," she repeated. "A gorilla with a
gun is dangerous."
"Bitch," said the reverend and was about to bang her yellow head
into the furniture when he felt a tingle around a very delicate
part of his body. It was as if she had slipped a ring on it.
"Oh, my Lawd," said the reverend, looking down in horror. For
there was a ring down there, a white metal band, but
surrounding the band was his own blood, a thin line. His desire
disappeared like a yoyo coming back to the hand that launched it,
but the white metal ring closed down to the size of his diminishing
desire. And the blood was still there.
"Don't worry, Reverend, that's just a little blood. Do you want
to see more?"
And then there was pain in that most delicate place. Reverend
Wadson looked down in horror at the growing red drippings.
He grabbed the ring but could not tug it off without tearing his
flesh.
"Ah kill you," bellowed the massive man.
"And you lose it, sweety," said Ingrid and she held up a little
black box the size of a box of restaurant souvenir matches. It had
a small red plastic toggle switch set in the center. She moved the
switch forward and the pain in his groin eased. She moved it back
and it felt as if someone were sticking pins in a circle around his
organ.
"Close up your pants, Reverend. We're going out."
"S'right. Ah gots speech to make. Yessuh, black is beauty. De
mos' beautiful. Got to get on wif it right now. Racism, it doan
sleep. No suh. Black, it you basic beauty."
"Can the crap, Reverend. You're coming with me."
"Ah's bleeding," wailed Wadson.
"Don't worry. You'll live."
Wadson's big brown eyes looked at the blond woman with
distrust.
"C'mon, I didn't go to this trouble to mug you, Reverend."
Reverend Wadson stuffed a used Kleenex around the metallic ring
that bound him like a slave. He hoped that it might loosen and with
a jerk he could get it off. But it did not loosen and he realized
that the little box she held was stronger than a gun. There was
some sort of radio wave the box operated on that made the ring
smaller or larger. If he were to get a wall between him and that
thing, why, the ring might slip off easily.
"If radio contact is broken," said the blond, "you lose
everything. The ring closes for good and goodbye your preaching
instrument."
Reverend Wadson smiled and handed over his pearl-handled
revolver, handle first. He made sure he was always near her as they
left the hotel. But not too close. Whenever his big brown hammy
paws got near the instrument Ingrid carried, he felt a stinging
pain in a most painful place.
They got into Ingrid's car. She drove and told him to get into
the back seat where he sat with his hands hovering over his groin.
It dawned on him that this was the first waking moment of his adult
life that he was with a beautiful woman without organizing some
program to get himself into her pants.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The building was only three blocks from Macy's in the center of
Manhattan but when Macy's and Gimbel's rang their closing bells,
the whole area cleared out as if it were a blackboard and God had
wiped the wet eraser of night over it.
Reverend Wadson slumped deeper into the back seat of the car as
it pulled to a stop in front of an old lime-stained brick building
that looked like a hiring hall for rats. He looked cautiously out
his side window, then craned his neck to look behind the car.
"Ah doan laks dis place," he said. "This neighborhood not safe
dis time of night."
"I'll protect you, Porkchop," Ingrid said.
"Ain' got my piece," said Wadson. "Ain' nobody got no right make
somebody go into some place like dis without him got a piece to
protects him."
"Like those old white people you turned loose in that jungle
tonight? That got burned alive?"
"Weren't my fault," Reverend Wadson said. If he could just get
her talking, maybe he could get his hands on that little black box
she kept pressed between her legs as she drove. "Dey volunteers.
Dey volunteer to make up fo' centuries of white oppression."
Ingrid carefully took off her driving gloves. She seemed in no
hurry to leave the car, as if she were waiting for a signal. Wadson
moved up slightly on the edge of the seat. One big hand around her
neck and her own hands would probably fly up to her throat to save
herself. Then he could pluck that little black box from between her
legs. But carefully. Carefully.
"They were poor old people who didn't know any better," Ingrid
said. "They believed all that bilge that they heard from fakers
like you and others just like you. You should have protected
them."
"Not my job to give dem protection. Gubbermint not give me
'nough money to give de protection. Gubbermint cheat de black man
again and now try to blame dat accident on the black man. Oh, when
will it end, dis oppression?" he moaned.
"The strong have an obligation to protect the weak," said
Ingrid. "In the old colonies of the western world, that used to be
called the white man's burden. Nowadays, in these jungles…"
she paused and started to turn toward him "… it's the jungle
bunny's burden."
Wadson had almost reached the edge of his seat when Ingrid
turned and gave him a full bright smile of perfect pearlescent
teeth. "You move another inch toward me, darkie, and you're going
to be singing soprano for the rest of your life."
Reverend Wadson slumped back in the corner of the seat
again.
"Ah still doan lak dis place," he said.
"If we're attacked by a marauding band, you can give them all
your all-inen-are-brothers sermon. That should raise their
consciousness. Assuming they have any."
She seemed satisfied that Wadson had given up any aggressive
plans, so she turned back and continued looking out the front
window. Just to remind him, she touched the red toggle switch atop
the black box.
"All right, all right," Wadson said hurriedly then groaned in
relief as the pressure was relieved slightly.
The pain was bearable but it was always there. Wadson didn't
trust that Ingrid not to mess with that switch so he sat still.
Very still. His day would come. One day, he'd get her and she
wouldn't have that little black box and he would have his gun and
he would do his number on her and then when he was all done, he
would turn her over to the Saxon Lords for a toy and they would
teach her not to mess with the black man, not to subjugate him and
his nobility to her own…
Someone was coming down the street. Three men moved along toward
them. Black men. Young black men with big floppy hats and platform
shoes and skin-tight trousers. Was that who she was waiting
for?
The three men stopped ten feet from the car, peering through the
windshield. One bent closer for a better look, saw Ingrid's white
blond hair, and pointed toward her. The other two bent over for a
better look. They smiled, bright sunshine smiles in their midnight
faces. Hitching up their trousers, they sauntered over to the
car.
Go 'way, Reverend Wadson thought. Go 'way, we don' want no
trouble wif you. But he said nothing.
The biggest of the three young men, who looked to be eighteen
years old, tapped on the window near Ingrid's left ear.
She looked at him coolly, then rolled the window down two
inches.
"Yes?"
"You lost, lady? We help you if you is lost,"
"I'm not lost, thank you."
"Then why you waiting here? Hah. Why you here?"
"I like it here."
"You waiting for a man, you doan have to waits no mo'. Now you
go ts three mens."
"Wonderful," Ingrid said. "Why don't we all make a date to meet
sometime at the monkey house at the zoo?"
"Doan have to wait for no dates to meet wif us. We heah now and
we ready for you." He turned to his two companions. "Ain' we ready
for her?"
One nodded. The other said, "Oooooh, is we ever?"
"It's been nice talking to you boys. Good night," Ingrid
said.
"Wait a minute. Ain' no boys you talking to. No boys. We's men.
Where you getting that boys? You doan go doing no boying around
heah. We's men. You want to see how big mens we is, we shows
you."
He reached down to unzip his fly.
"Take it out and I'll take it off," Ingrid said.
"Take it out," said one of the other youths.
"Yeah. Take it out," said the other. "She 'fraid your black
power. Show her your tower of power."
The first youth was confused now. He looked at Ingrid.
"Yo wanna see it?"
"No," she said. "I want your lips. I want your big beautiful
lips to kiss."
The boy swelled up and smirked at his two friends. "Well,
little foxy lady, ain' no trouble wiffen dat dere." He bent over
and put his face toward the car. He puckered his lips in the
two-inch opening at the top of the window.
Ingrid stuck Reverend Wadson's pearl-handled revolver into the
big open mouth.
"Here, Sambo, suck on this for a while."
The young black man recoiled. "Sheeit," he said.
"Nice to meet you. My name's Ingrid."
"Dis bitch crazy," said the man, wiping the taste of the gun
barrel from his mouth.
"This what?" Ingrid asked, pointing the barrel of the gun at the
man's stomach.
"Ah sorry. Lady. Come on, boys, we go now. Yes'm, we go
now."
"Have a nice day, nigger," Ingrid said.
She pointed the gun at him again as he moved back a step.
"Yes'm," he said. "Yes'm." He put an arm around the shoulder of
one of his friends and moved quickly away from the car, careful to
make sure that his friend was between him and the gun barrel.
Ingrid rolled up the window. Reverend Wadson breathed again.
They had never seen him, hidden in the dark corner of the rear
seat. Ingrid seemed content not to talk and Wadson decided not to
try to get her to change her mind.
They waited in silence another ten minutes before Ingrid said,
"All right. We can go up now." As Reverend Wadson got out of the
car, she said, "Lock it up. Your friends may come back and eat the
seats if you don't." She waited, then nodded to Wadson to lead the
way down the street. She followed, her fingers on the red toggle
switch of the little black box.
"Up here," she ordered as they passed in front of a three-story
stone tenement. Wadson led the way up to the top floor. There was
only one door on the floor and Ingrid pushed Wadson through it,
into a large, spartan apartment where Tony Spesk, ne Colonel
Speskaya, sat on a brown flowered sofa, reading Commentary
Magazine with a thin smile on his pale face.
He nodded to Ingrid as she entered, and told Wadson to sit down
in the chair facing the couch.
"You are here, Reverend Wadson, because we need your
services."
"Who you?" Wadson asked.
Spesk grinned, a large wide smile. "We are the people who
control your life. That's all you need to know."
With a sudden flash of inspiration, Wadson asked, "You communists?"
"You might say that," said Spesk.
"Ah communist too," said Wadson.
"Oh, really?"
"Yeah. Ah believes in share and share alike. Equality. Nobody
being rich ober de bodies ob de poor. Ah believes in dat."
"How droll," said Spesk. He stood up from the couch, carefully
placing the magazine on one of the arms. "And what is your
viewpoint of the Hegelian dichotomy?"
"Hah?" said Reverend Wadson.
"What do you think of the revolt of the sailors at Kronstadt?"
Spesk asked. "The Menshevik heresy?"
"Hah?"
"Of course, you support the labor theory of value as modified by
the research of Belchov?"
"Hah?"
"I hope, Reverend Wadson," Spesk said, "that you live to see the
Communist victory. Because two days later, you'll be in a field
picking cotton. Ingrid, call and make sure our other visitor is on
his way."
Ingrid nodded and went from the large living room into a smaller
room, closing the door behind her. Wadson noticed that she had
placed the small black box on the arm of the couch near Spesk. His
chance at last. An opening.
When the door had closed behind Ingrid, he smiled at Spesk.
"That one bad woman."
"Oh?" said Spesk.
"Yeah. She a racist. She hate black men. She committing a
'trocity on me."
"Too bad, Wadson. Next to me, she looks like Albert
Schweitzer."
His eyes had a strange hard glint in them and while Reverend
Wadson didn't know who Albert Schweitzer was, because he didn't pay
too much attention to the comings and goings of Jews, he decided
Spesk's comment pretty well sealed off the prospect of a
counter-conspiracy against Ingrid. And the black box was still too
far away.
"Listen, Mister…"
"Spesk. Tony Spesk."
"Well, listen Mr. Spesk, she got dis ring on me and it hurts.
You fixing to let me loose?"
"A day or two if you behave yourself. Never, if you cause me any
trouble."
"I causes you no trouble," Wadson said. "I be the least
troubling man you ever likely to find."
"Good, because I need you for something. Sit on the floor and
listen."
Wadson moved off the chair and lowered
himself to the floor, carefully, as if he had raw eggs in his back
pockets.
"There is a white man. He travels with an old Oriental. I want
them."
"You gots dem. Where is they?"
"I don't know. I saw them down in your neighborhood. Near the
house where that old woman, Mrs. Mueller, was killed."
Mrs. Mueller? Mrs. Mueller? That was the old woman the
government was so interested in. They had been looking for
something. And whatever it was Wadson had it. Her apartment had
yielded only junk, but there was a strange-looking device that the
Saxon Lords had brought Wadson to try to fence.
"I gots something better dan any white man and chink," Wadson
said.
"What is that?"
"Dey was dis thing that the Missus Mueller had and the
government, it was lookin' for."
"Yes."
"I got de ting."
"What is it?" Spesk said.
"Ah doan know. It some kind of ting that goes tick and tick, but
ah doan knows what it's for."
"Where do you have it?"
"You takes de ring off, I tell you." Wadson tried a large
friendly smile.
"You don't tell me and I'm going to take part of you off." Spesk
reached out and lifted the small black box.
"Hold it, hold it, hold it raht theah. I got the dee-vice. I got
it at my 'partment."
"Good. I want it. But more than that, I want the white man and
the Oriental."
"I find dem. I get dem for you. What you want dem for?"
"They're weapons. Never mind. You wouldn't understand."
"You gonna take de ring off?"
"When you perform."
Wadson nodded glumly. Spesk took several steps back to the
couch. He was limping heavily.
"What happen to you leg?"
"That's what I want to see the white man about," Spesk said.
"What white man?"
"What have we been talking about? The white man and the
Oriental."
"Oh, dat white man."
Spesk looked up as Ingrid returned.
"I just saw his car. He's on his way up," she said.
"Fine. You know what to do."
Though the wood parquet floor was hard under Reverend Wadson's
butt he didn't think it would be wise to move. That black box was
still too close to Spesk's hand. He sat still as Ingrid went back
into the other room and came out with another black box. She gave
it to Spesk. She was also carrying a hoop, a round white ring of
metal, the size of a hoop from a child's ring-toss game.
Spesk held the black box in his hands and nodded to Ingrid who
walked to the door of the apartment and stood behind the door.
A few seconds later, the door opened, and a small man with a
graying crew cut splashed into the room. He came at top speed as if
he had just remembered where he had misplaced his wallet. He looked
up and saw Spesk and smiled.
The man paused a moment, as if psychically recharging himself
for another frenzied bolt across the floor toward Spesk, when
Ingrid stepped from behind the door and with one quick practiced
motion opened the white ring and snapped it around the man's
neck.
The man recoiled and spun toward her, his right hand slipping
immediately into the jacket of his plaid sports jacket.
"Breslau," Spesk said. His voice, uttering one word, was a harsh
command demanding obedience. Breslau turned. He put his hands to
the ring on his neck and tried to pull it off. When it did not come
loose, he looked at Spesk and his smile was gone. His face was all
questions.
"Leave that alone and come here," Spesk said.
The small man looked at Ingrid once more as if filing her
perfidy for a future accounting date, then came toward Spesk. He
finally saw Reverend Wadson on the floor and looked at him, unsure
whether to smile in welcome or to sneer in victory. Instead he
just looked blankly at Wadson, and then again at Spesk.
"Colonel Speskaya," Breslau said. "I heard you were in the city.
I could not wait to talk to you." His hands again went to the ring
at his neck. "But what is this? Most strange." He smiled at Spesk
as if they alone in the world shared a secret knowledge of the
earth's grossest stupidities.
He glanced at Wadson to see if the black man had a similar ring
around his neck. Wadson wanted to shout, "Honkey, I gots one worse
than that."
"Breslau," Spesk said coldly. "You know a house on Walton
Avenue?"
The small smile of secret sharing left Breslau's face but only
for an instant before he recovered. "But of course, Colonel. That
is why I was most anxious to see you. To discuss this with
you."
"And that is why you and your superiors saw fit not to notify us
of what you were doing and what you were looking for?"
"It might have been a fruitless search," Breslau said. "It was,
in fact. I would not want to bother you with trivia."
Spesk looked down at the small black box in his hands.
"I will give you some trivia," he said. "You did not notify us
because your agency was freelancing again and trying to capture
this device for yourself. East Germany has always had such
ambitions." He raised a hand to silence Breslau's protest. "You
were awkward and inept. There would have been ways to move into
that building, to search for something of value. We could simply
have bought the building through a front. But, no, that would have
been too simple. So you had to blunder around and finally bring in
the American CIA and the American FBI and they took the operation away from you."
Breslau did not know yet if it was the right time to protest.
His face seemed frozen.
"Ineptitude is bad enough," Spesk said. "Ineptitude that results
in failure is even worse. It is intolerable. You may speak
now."
"You are right, Comrade. We should have advised you earlier. But
as I say, the device was only a rumor among some of those in the
German Democratic Republic who were active during the war. It could
well have been only a figment of someone's imagination. As in fact
it was. There is no such device."
"Wrong. There is."
"There is?" Breslau's suprise had overtones of sadness.
"Yes. This creature has it. He is going to give it to me."
Breslau looked at Wadson again. "Well, that's wonderful.
Marvelous."
"Isn't it?" Spesk said drily, rejecting the partnership that
Breslau had tried to construct with his tone of voice.
"And this device, is it of value? Will we be able to use it in
the future in the battle against the imperialists?"
"I have not seen it," Spesk said. "But it is a device. There are
devices and devices." Finally Wadson saw him smile. "Like the thing
around your neck."
"Is this it?" Breslau said. His hands went to the ring around
his throat.
"No. That is something new we have just invented. I will show
you how it works."
As Wadson watched, Spesk pushed forward the red toggle switch
on the small black box. Breslau gagged. His eyes bulged.
"Aaaaggghhh." His hands clawed at the ring.
"You are being removed, Comrade," said Spesk, "not because you
have been deceitful but because you have been caught at it. Too
bad."
He pushed the switch forward farther, a mere fraction of an
inch. Breslau dropped to his knees. His fingertips dug into his
neck in an effort to make room for his fingers behind the
tightening white ring. Where his fingernails dug, they left trails
of blood on his throat as they gouged out skin and flesh. Wadson
felt a sympathetic pain in his groin.
Breslau's mouth opened. His eyes bulged out farther, like a man
who spent a year on a diet of thyroid extract.
"Enjoy, enjoy," Spesk said. He pushed the switch all the way
forward. There was a crack that sounded like a wooden pencil being
broken. Breslau fell face forward onto the floor with a final hiss
of air from his lungs, that turned into a small red bubbly froth
leaking out of the corner of his mouth. His eyes stared at Reverend
Wadson and already, the black man could see them begin to haze
over.
Wadson grimaced.
"You," Spesk said. He put down the one black box and picked up
the other. "You know now what I want you to do."
"Yassuh," said Wadson.
"Repeat it."
"Yo' wants me to find dis white man and dis yellow man and den
brings dem here." He rolled his eyes, and smiled a big pancake.
"Dat it, boss?"
"Yes. There will be no mistakes?"
"No 'stakes. Nossuh, Missah Tony."
"Good. You may leave now. Ingrid will go with you to keep an eye
on you and to examine this device that came from the Mueller
apartment. I warn you. Do not be foolish and try to attack Ingrid.
She is a very good agent."
Wadson got to his feet slowly and quietly, lest a heavily placed
heel infuriate Spesk and he begin playing with that red toggle
switch. The reverend turned to look for Ingrid. She was standing
behind him, looking down at the dead body of East German agent
Breslau.
And her nipples were hard again, Wadson noticed. And he wished
they weren't.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Two bath towels were bunched up at one end of the tub but the
newspapers Remo had spread on the floor were still dry and he felt
like patting Tyrone's head when he unlocked the bathroom doof and
let him out.
Tyrone ran immediately for the front door of the hotel suite.
His hand was on the doorknob when he felt himself being jerked
backward, up into the air, and plummeting down onto a couch which
exhaled air with an asthmatic whoosh when Tyrone's 147 pounds
landed on it.
"What's the big hurry?" Remo said.
"Ah wants get outta here."
"You see," Chiun said, standing near the window and looking out
toward Central Park. "He wants. Therefore it must be done now.
Instant gratification. How typical of the young."
"Except for the way it's piled, this garbage isn't typical of
anything, Little Father."
"Yo' better lets me go now. Ah gotta go," Tyrone said. "Ah wants
to be leavin'."
"You wants, you wants," Remo said. "What do you deserveses?"
"Ah gots go school."
"School? You?"
"Assright. And ah gots go or ah gets in trouble and yo' be in
trouble 'cause it's de law dat ah go school."
"Little Father," Remo asked, "what could they teach this thing
in school? They've had him most of his life already and they still
haven't been able to teach him English."
"Maybe it is an intelligent school system," Chiun said, "and
devotes no time to the study of inferior languages."
"No," said Remo. "I can't believe that."
"Dey teach me," said Tyrone, "and ah learns. Ah speaks street
English. Dat de real English before it be robbed by de white man
who ruin it when he steal it from de black man."
"Where'd you hear that drivel?" Remo asked.
"Ah hears it in de school. Dey have dis man who write de book
and he tell us that we talk real fine and everybody else, dey be
wrong. He say we speak de real English."
"Listen to this, Chiun. You don't have to like English but it's
my language. It's a shame to hear this done to it." Remo turned to
Tyrone again. "This man who wrote that book about your English. Is
he in your school?"
"Yeah. He de guidance counsellor at Malcolm-King-Lumumba. He one
smart muvver."
"Remember what I told you last night?" Remo asked.
" 'Bout killing me?"
Remo nodded. "I haven't made up my mind yet. If I find out
you're responsible for you, then you're going to vanish without
leaving a spot. But if it's not your fault, then, well maybe, just
maybe, you'll live. Come on. We're going to talk to your guidance
counselor. On your feet, Tyrone."
"Those are the things at the ends of your legs," Chiun said.
The Malcolm-King-Lumumba School had cost nineteen million
dollars when it had been built five years earlier. The building
covered one square block, and the interior of the building
surrounded a central court of walkways, picnic tables, and outdoor
basketball backboards.
When the city had first designed the building, the nationally
famous architect had called for a minimum of glasswork along the
four exterior sides of the building. This would be compensated by
window walls on the inside of the building, bordering the
courtyard.
The community school board had attacked the plans as racist
attempts to hide away black children. A public relations firm hired
by the school board mounted a campaign whose theme was "What do
they have to hide?" and "Bring the schools out into the light" and
"Don't send our children back to the cave."
The New York City central school board surrendered to community
pressure in forty-eight hours. The school's plans were redrawn. The
inside of the school building still had floor-to-ceiling windows,
but the perimeter of Malcolm-King-Lumumba was changed from mostly
stone to mostly glass.
The first year, the cost of replacing broken glass caused by
passing rock tossers was $140,000; the second year, new glass cost
$231,000. In four years, the cost of windows for
Malcolm-King-Lumumba exceeded one million dollars.
In the fifth year, two important things happened. The city faced
a budget crunch in the schools. When the budget cut hit Lumumba
High, the president of the community school board knew just where
to cut expenses, because of the second important thing: his
brother, having been made almost a millionaire by four years of
supplying windows to the school, sold his glass business and opened
a lumberyard.
Lumumba High stopped replacing glass. They boarded up all the
big window openings around the four outside walls of the school
with plywood. The first year's cost was $63,000.
Lumumba High was now sealed off from the outside world by a wall
of stone and exterior-grade Douglas fir plywood through which not
light or air or learning could penetrate.
When a member of the community school board protested about the
plywood and the resultant lack of light and asked a meeting "What
are they trying to hide?" and to "Let our children out of the
dark," he was beaten up on his way home after the meeting. There
had been no protests since that time.
When the architect who had originally designed the school drove
up one day to look at it, he sat in his car for an hour
weeping.
Remo deposited Tyrone Walker inside the main corridor of
Malcolm-King-Lumumba School.
"Now you go to your classes," Remo said.
Tyrone nodded but looked toward the front door where a pale
knife-edge of sunlight slipped in alongside one of the plywood
panels.
"No, Tyrone," said Remo. "You go to your classes. If you don't
and you try to get away, I'll come and find you. And you won't like
that."
Tyrone nodded again, glumly. He swallowed with a gulp as if
trying to devour a swollen gland in his throat.
"And don't you leave here without me," Remo said.
"What yo do?"
"I'm going to talk to some of the people here and see if it's
your fault or theirs that you are what you are."
"All right, all right," said Tyrone. "Anyways, dis nice day to
be in school. We gots de reading today."
"You study reading? I thought you didn't." Remo was
impressed.
"Well, not dat honkey kind of shit. De teacher, she read to
us."
"What's she read?"
"Outen a big book wifout de pitchers."
"Get out of here, Tyrone," Remo said.
After Tyrone left, Remo looked around for the office. Two young
men who looked to be ten years older than the minimum age for
quitting school walked toward him and Remo asked if they knew where
the office was.
"You got a nickel, man?" said one.
"Actually, no," Remo said. "But I've got cash. Probably two
thousand, three thousand dollars. I don't like to walk around
broke."
"Den you gives us some bread iffen you wants de office."
"Go surround a ham hock," Remo said.
The young man backed off a step from Remo, and with a jerking
movement of his hand, had a switchblade out of his pocket and aimed
at Remo's belly.
"Now you gives us bread."
The other young man stood off to the side, applauding quietly, a
big smile on his face.
"You know," Remo said, "school is a great learning
experience."
The man with the knife looked confused. "Ah doan
wanna…"
"For instance," Remo said, "you're going to learn what it feels
like to have your wrist bones mashed to jelly."
The knife wavered in the hand of the young man.
Remo moved a step closer and as if responding to a dare, the
youth pushed the blade forward. The first thing he heard was the
click as the knife blade hit the stone floor. The next thing he
heard was a series of clicks as the bones were shattering in his
right wrist, in the twisting grip of the white man.
The man opened his mouth to scream, but Remo clamped a hand over
his face.
"Mustn't make loud noises. You'll disrupt the little scholars at
their work. Now where's the office?"
He looked at the second young man who said, "Down that corridor.
First door on the right."
"Thank you," Remo said. "Nice talking to you boys."
The door to the office was solid steel without windows and Remo
had to lean his weight on it before it pushed open.
Remo walked up to the long counter inside the office and waited.
Finally a woman appeared and asked "Wha' yo' want?" The woman was
tall and overweight, her hair a haloed mountain of frizz around her
head.
An office door to Remo's left said, "Doctor Shockley, Guidance
Counselor."
"I want to see him," Remo said, pointing toward the door.
"Him's busy. What yo' want see him 'bout?"
"One of your students. A Tyrone Walker."
"De police precinct be down de street. Tell dem 'bout dis
Tyrone."
"I'm not here with a police problem. I want to talk about
Tyrone's schoolwork."
"Who you?"
"I'm a friend of the family. Tyrone's parents are both working
today and they asked me to stop by and see what I could do."
"Wha' yo' say?" The woman's eyes narrowed suspiciously.
"I thought I was speaking English. Tyrone's folks are working
and they wanted me…"
"Ah hear you. Ah hear you. What kind of silly story be dat? What
kind of people you tink we is, you come in and try to fool us like
dat?"
"Fool you?" asked Remo.
"Nobody gots no folks what bofe be working. Why you heah tellin'
dem lies?"
Remo sighed. "I don't know why I bother. All right. I'm Tyrone's
parole officer. I think he's violated parole with a triple rape and
six murders. I want to talk to Shockley before I send him to the
electric chair."
"Dat better, you be tellin' de troof now. You sit down and you
wait and Shockley be wif you when he gets chancet. He busy."
The woman nodded Remo toward a chair and went back to her desk
and a copy of Essential Magazine, the Journal of Black
Beauty. She stared at the cover.
Remo found himself sitting next to a teenage boy who was staring
hard at a coloring book on his lap. It was open to a cartoon of
Porky Pig sniffing a flower in front of a barn.
The boy took a crayon from his shirt pocket, colored one of
Porky's fat round hams pink, then replaced the crayon. He took out
a green one and colored the roof of the barn. He replaced that
crayon and took out the pink one again to do Porky's other rear
leg.
Remo watched over the boy's shoulder.
"You're pretty good," he said.
"Yeah, I do de best in de art appreciation classes."
"I can see why. You almost stay inside all the lines."
"Sometime it be hard though when de lines close together and de
point of de crayon don't fit 'tween dem."
"What do you do then?" asked Remo.
"Ah takes a crayon from somebody whats got a sharp one and ah
use dat one to fit in 'tween de lines."
"And you give him your old crayon?"
The boy looked at Remo, a look of confusion on his face as if
Remo were speaking a language he had never heard.
"Whuffo ah do that? Ah trows de old crayon away. You a social
worker or somefin?"
"No, but sometimes I wish I were."
"Yo' talks funny. 'If ah were' you says."
"That's called English."
"Yeah. That. What your name?"
"Bwana Sahib," Remo said.
"You son of great Arab chief too?"
"I'm a direct descendant of that great Arabian chief,
Pocahontas."
"Great Arab chiefs, dey be black," the boy sniffed. He knew a
fool when he saw one.
"I was on his mother's side," Remo said. "Go back to
coloring."
"It all right. Ah gots till tomorra to finish it."
Remo shook his head. At the desk, the black woman was still
staring at the cover of Essential Magazine, the Journal of
Black Beauty.
Shockley's office door opened slightly and Remo heard a
voice.
"Rat bastard," came a shriek. "You be discriminating. Dat not be
fair."
The door opened fully and a woman stood in the opening, her back
to Remo. She was shaking a fist at something inside the room. The
woman had big thick hams that jiggled below the flowered belt of
her cotton dress. Her hips looked like a hassock with a bite taken
out of it. Her flailing arms set off wave movements in the oceans
of fat that hung from her upper
biceps. A voice inside the room said something softly.
"You still a rat bastard," she said. "If you didn't have dat, I
show you a ting or two."
She turned and stepped toward Remo. If hate had been
electricity, her eyes would have sparked. Her lips were pressed
tight together and her nostrils flared.
For a moment, Remo considered running lest the mastodon get her
hands on him. But she stopped next to the boy who was coloring.
"Come on, Shabazz, we going home."
The boy was trying to finish up the coloring of Porky Pig's
right front leg. Remo could hear his teeth grind as he
concentrated. The woman lingered only for a moment, then clubbed
the boy alongside the head. Crayon went flying one way, the
coloring book the other.
"Come on, ma, why you do dat?"
"We gettin' outta here. Dat rat bastard, he not gonna change his
mind 'bout you graduating."
"You mean your son here is not going to be graduated?" Remo
said. "He's going to be left back?" Maybe there was still some
sanity in the world.
The woman looked at Remo as if he were a fried rib that had lain
all night on a subway platform.
"What you talking? Shabazz here, he de salitate-atorian. He got
honors."
"Then what's the problem?" Remo asked.
"De problem is Shabazz gots go away on May fifteempf. And dat
no good Shockley, he won't change de graduation and make it no
earlier so dat Shabazz get his diploma before he go to de jail. He
do de five years for de robbery."
"That must be heartbreaking after Shabazz works so hard coloring
inside the lines."
"Dat right," said the mother. "C'mon, Shabazz, we gets outta dis
motherfuckin' place."
Shabazz shuffled to his feet. The sixteen-year-old was taller
than Remo. Standing next to his mother, he looked like a pencil
leaning against a pencil sharpener.
He followed the woman from the room, leaving his crayon and
coloring book on the floor where she had knocked them. Remo picked
them up and put them on the small end table that held a lamp,
bolted to the table with long steel stove bolts.
Remo looked across the counter at the woman who was still
staring at the cover of Essential Magazine, the Journal of
Black Beauty, her big lips moving slowly as if she were trying
to crush a very small guppy to death between them. She finally took
a deep breath and turned the cover to the front page.
"Excuse, me," Remo said. "May I go in now?"
The woman slammed shut the cover of the magazine. "Sheeit," she
said. "Always inneruptions. Now ah got to start all over
'gain."
"I won't bother you again," Remo said. "I'll be quiet."
"You do that, heah? Go 'head in, iffen you wants."
Doctor Shockley's office was really two offices. There was the
part Remo stood in, just inside the door, a skeleton of a room with
three chairs bolted to the vinyl-tiled floor and a lamp that was
riveted to the floor and had a tamperproof wire screen around the
bare bulb.
The other part of the office was where Shockley sat at a desk.
Behind him were shelves filled with books, tape recorders, and
statues of African artifacts that were made in a small town in
Illinois. And between the two halves of the office was a screen, a
tight steel mesh that ran from wall to floor, from floor to
ceiling, effectively separating Shockley from anyone who might come
into his office. Next to his desk, a gate was built into the
screen. It was fastened on Shockley's side with a heavy bulletproof
padlock.
Shockley was a trim black man with a modest Afro and darting
eyes. He wore a pin-striped gray suit with a pink shirt and black
figured tie. His fingernails were manicured, Remo noticed, and he
wore a thin gold Omega watch on his narrow wrist.
His hands were open on his desk, palm side down. Next to his
right hand was a .357 Magnum. Remo had to look twice before he
believed it. The gun had notches on the carved wooden grip.
Shockley smiled at Remo as Remo approached the screen.
"Won't you sit down, please?" His voice was nasal, bored, and
precise, the adenoidal Ivy League squeak that clips off words as if
they are unworthy to remain in the speaker's mouth.
"Thank you," Remo said.
"What may I do for you?" Shockley asked.
"I'm a friend of the family. I've come to inquire about one of
your students. A Tyrone Walker."
"Tyrone Walker? Tyrone Walker? Just a moment."
Shockley pressed a panel built into his desk and a television
monitor popped up from inside the left edge of the desk. He pressed
some buttons on a typewriter keyboard and Remo could see the
reflection in his eyes as a flicker of light illuminated the
screen.
"Oh yes. Tyrone Walker." Shockley looked toward Remo with a
smile of love and beneficence. "You'll be happy to know, Mr…
Mister?"
"Sahib," Remo said. "Bwana Sahib."
"Well, Mr. Sahib, you'll be happy to know that Tyrone is doing
just fine."
"I beg your pardon," Remo said.
"Tyrone Walker is doing just fine."
"Tyrone Walker is a living time bomb," Remo said. "It is just a
matter of when he explodes and hurts someone. He is a functional
illiterate, barely housebroken. How can he be doing fine?"
As he spoke, Remo had started to come up out of his chair and
Shockley's hand moved slowly toward the Magnum. He relaxed
as Remo sat back in the seat.
"It's all right here, Mr. Sahib. And computers never lie. Tyrone
is at the top of his class in language arts, near the top in word
graphic presentation, and in the top twentieth percentile in basic
computational skills."
"Let me guess," Remo said. "That's reading, writing, and
arithmetic."
Shockley smiled a small smile. "Well, in the old days, it was
called that. Before we moved into new relevant areas of
education."
"Name one," Remo said.
"It's all right here in one of my books," Shockley said. He
waved his left hand toward a shelf of books directly behind his
left shoulder. "Adventures in Education-An Answer to the
Question of Racism in the Classroom."
"You wrote that?" Remo asked.
"I've written all these books, Mr. Sahib," Shockley said.
"Racism on Trial, Inequality in the Classroom, The Black
Cultural Experience and its Effect on Learning, Street English-A
Historical Imperative."
''Have you written anything about how to teach kids to read and
write?"
"Yes. My masterwork is considered Street English, A
Historial Imperative. It tells how the true English was the
black man's English and the white power structure changed it into
something it was never meant to be, thereby setting ghetto children
at a disadvantage."
"That's idiotic," Remo said.
"Is it? Did you know that the word 'algebra' is itself an Arabic
word? And the Arabs are, of course, black."
"They'd be interested in hearing that," Remo said. "What's your
answer to this disadvantage of ghetto children in learning
English?"
"Let us return to the true basic form of English, Street
English. Black English, if you will."
"In other words, because these bunnies can't talk right, make
their stupidity the standard by which you judge everybody
else?"
"That is racist, Mr. Sahib," Shockley said indignantly.
"I notice you don't speak this Street English," Remo said. "If
it's so pure, why don't you?"
"I have my educational doctorate from Harvard," Shockley said.
His nostrils pinched tighter together as he said it.
"That's no answer. Are you saying you don't speak Street English
because you're smart enough not to?"
"Street English is quite capable of being understood on the
streets."
"What if they want to get off the streets? What if they need to
know something more than 127 different ways to shake hands? What
happens when they go into the real world where most people talk
real English? They'll sound as stupid and backward as that clerk of
yours out there." Remo waved toward the door, outside which he
could still imagine the woman sitting at the desk, worrying to
death the seven words on the cover of Essential Magazine, the
Journal of Black Beauty.
"Clerk?" said Shockley. His eyes raised in a pair of question
marks.
"Yes. That woman out there."
Shockley chuckled. "Oh. You must mean Doctor Bengazi."
"No, I don't mean Doctor anybody. I mean that woman out there
who can't read."
"Tall woman?"
Remo nodded.
"Big frizzy do?" Shockley surrounded his hair with his
hands.
Remo nodded.
Shockley nodded back. "Doctor Bengazi. Our principal."
"God help us all."
Remo and Shockley looked at each other for long seconds without
speaking.
Finally Remo said, "Seeing as how nobody wants to teach these
kids to read or write, why not teach them trades? To be plumbers or
carpenters or truckdrivers or something."
"How quick you all are to consign these children to the scrap
heap. Why should they not have a full opportunity to share in the
riches of American life?"
"Then why the hell don't you prepare them for that full
opportunity?" Remo asked. "Teach them to read, for Christ's sake.
You ever leave a kid back?"
"Leave a child back? What does that mean?"
"You know. Fail to promote him because his work isn't good
enough."
"We have done away with those vestigial traces of racism. IQ
tests, examinations, report cards, promotions. Every child advances
with his or her peer group, socially adept, with the basic skills
of community interaction attuned to the higher meaning of the
ethnic experience."
"But they can't read," Remo yelled.
"I think you overstate the case somewhat," Shockley said, with
the satisfied smile of a man trying to impress the drunken stranger
on the next bar stool.
"I just saw your salutatorian. He can't even color inside the
lines."
"Shabazz is a very bright boy. He has indigenous advancement
attitudes."
"He's a frigging armed robber."
"To err is human. To forgive divine," Shockley said.
"Why didn't you forgive him then and change the date of
graduation for him?" Remo asked.
"I couldn't. I just changed it to another date and I couldn't
make any more changes."
"Why'd you change it the first time?"
"For the valedictorian."
"What's he going up for?" Remo asked.
"It is a she, Mr. Sahib. And no, she is not going to jail.
However, she is going to enjoy the meaningful experience of giving
birth."
"And you moved up the graduation so she wouldn't foal on the
stage?"
"That's crude," Shockley said.
"Did you ever think, Mr. Shockley…"
"Doctor Shockley. Doctor."
"Did you ever think, Doctor Shockley, that perhaps it's your
policies that reduce you to this?"
"To what?"
"To sitting here, barricaded in your office behind a metal
fence, a gun in your hand. Did it ever occur to you that if you
treated your kids as humans, with rights and responsibilities, they
might act like humans?"
"And you think I could do this by 'leaving them, back,' as you
so quaintly put it?"
"For a start, yeah. Maybe if the others see that they've got to
work, they'll work. Demand something from them."
"By leaving them back? Now I'll give you an example. Each
September, we take one hundred children into the first grade. Now
suppose I was to leave back all one hundred because they were
unable to perform satisfactorily on some arbitrary test of learning
experience…"
"Like going to the bathroom," Remo interrupted.
"If I were to leave back all hundred, then next September I
would have two hundred children in the first grade and the
September after that, three hundred children. It would never stop
and after a few years I would be running a school in which everyone
was in the first grade."
Remo shook his head. "That presupposes that all of them would be
left back. You really don't believe that these kids can be taught
to read or write, do you?"
"They can be taught the beauty of black culture, the richness of
their experience in America, and how they overcame degradation and
the white man's slavery, they can be taught…"
"You don't believe that they can be taught to learn anything,"
Remo said again. He stood up. "Shockley, you're a racist, you know
that? You're the worst racist I ever met. You'll accept anything,
any garbage, from these kids because you don't think they're
capable of doing any better."
"I? A racist?" Shockley chuckled and pointed to the wall. "There
is my award for promoting the ideals of brotherhood, equality, and
black excellence, presented to me on behalf of a grateful community
by the Black Ministry Council. So much for racism."
"Where does that computer say Tyrone is now?"
Shockley checked the small screen, then punched another button
on its keyboard. "Room 127, Advanced Communications."
"Good," Remo said. "I can just follow the sound of the
grunts."
"I'm not sure you understand the new aims of modern education,
Mr. Sahib."
"Forget it, pal," Remo said.
"But you…"
Suddenly it spilled out of Remo. The agonizing discussion with
Shockley, the stupidity of the man who had been put in control of
hundreds of young lives, the transparent hypocrisy of a man who
thought that if children lived in the gutter, the thing to do was
to sanctify the gutter with pious words, all of it filled Remo up
like a too-rich meal and, he could feel the bile rising in his
throat. For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, he lost
his temper.
Before Shockley could move, Remo's hand flashed out and ripped a
foot-square hole in the steel screen. Shockley's hands groped out,
grasping for his .357 Magnum but it wasn't there. It was in the
crazy white man's hands, and as Shockley watched in horror, Remo
snapped off the barrel just behind the cylinder. He looked at the
useless weapon, then tossed both parts onto the desk in front of
Shockley.
"There," he said.
Shockley's face was screwed up in anguish as if someone had just
squirted ammonia into his nostrils.
"Why you do that?" he whined.
"Just write it off as another indigenous ethnic experience in
racist white America," Remo said. "That's a book title. It's yours
for free."
Shockley picked up both parts of the pistol and looked at them.
Remo thought he was going to cry.
"You shouldna done dat," Shockley said and turned bloodhound
eyes on Remo.
Remo shrugged.
"What I go do now?" Shockley asked.
"Write another book. Call it Racism on the Rampage."
"You shouldna done dat ting," Shockley said. "I gots de parents
conference all dis appernoon and now whats I gonna do wif no
gun?"
"Stop hiding behind that screen like a goddam fireplace log and
come out and talk to the parents. Maybe they'll tell you that
they'd like their kids to learn to read and write. So long."
Remo walked to the door. He stopped and turned as he heard
Shockley mumbling.
"Deys gonna get me. Deys gonna get me. Oh, lawdy, deys gonna get
me and me wiffen no gun."
"That's the biz, sweetheart," Remo said.
When Remo went to collect Tyrone Walker, he wasn't sure if he
had walked into Room 127 or the sixth annual reunion celebration of
the Manson Family.
There were twenty-seven black teenagers in the classroom, a
limit set by state law because a larger class would have disrupted
the learning experience. A half dozen sat round a windowsill in the
far corner, passing a hand-rolled cigarette from hand to hand. The
room reeked with the deep bitter smell of marijuana. Three tall
youths amused themselves by throwing switchblade knives at a
picture of Martin Luther King that was Scotch-taped to one of the
pecan-paneled walls of the classroom. Most of the students lounged
at and on desks, their feet up on other desks, listening to
transistor radios that blared forth the top four songs on the
week's hit parade, "Love is Stoned," "Stone in Love," "In Love I'm
Stoned," and "Don't Stone My Love." The din in the classroom
sounded like a half dozen symphony orchestras warming up at the
same time. In a bus.
Three very pregnant girls stood by a side wall, talking to each
other, giggling and drinking wine from a small pint bottle of
muscatel. Remo looked around for Tyrone and found him sleeping
across two desks.
Remo drew a few glances from some of the students who then
dismissed him with contempt and disdain by turning away.
At the head of the classroom, seated at a desk, bent over a pile
of papers, was an iron-haired woman wearing a small-size version of
a man's wrist watch and a severe black dress. There was a little
nameplate screwed into the teacher's desk. It read Miss
Feldman.
The teacher did not look up and Remo stood alongside her desk,
watching what she was doing.
She had a stack of sheets of lined paper in front of her. On the
top of each sheet was rubber-stamped the name of a student. Most of
the papers she looked at were blank, except for the rubber-stamped
name. On the blank papers, Miss Feldman marked a neat 90 percent in
the upper right hand corner.
An occasional sheet would have some scratched pencil scrawls on
it. Those Miss Feldman marked 99 percent with three lines under the
score for emphasis and carefully glued a gold star to the top
center of the sheet.
She went through a dozen sheets before she realized someone
was standing at her desk. She looked up, startled, then relaxed when she saw Remo. "What
are you doing?" he asked. She smiled at him but said nothing. "What
are you doing?" Remo repeated. Miss Feldman continued to smile. No
wonder, Remo thought. The teacher was simple. Maybe brain damaged.
Then he saw the reason. There were tufts of cotton stuck into Miss
Feldman's ears.
Remo reached down and yanked them out. She winced as the rock
and roar of the classroom assaulted her eardrums.
"I asked what are you doing?"
"Marking test papers."
"A blank is a 90, a scratch is a 99 with a gold star?" Remo
said.
"You must reward effort," Miss Feldman said. Stie ducked as a
book came whizzing by her head, thrown from the back of the
room.
"What kind of test?" Remo asked.
"Basic tools of language art," said Miss Feldman.
"Which means?"
"The alphabet."
"You tested them on the alphabet. And most of them turned in
blank pages? And they get 90s?"
Miss Feldman smiled. She looked over her shoulder as if someone
could sneak up behind her in the three inches she had left between
her back and the wall.
"How long have you done this kind of work?" Remo said.
"I've been a teacher for thirty years."
"You've never been a teacher," Remo said. And she hadn't. A
teacher was Sister Mary Margaret who knew that while the road to
hell was paved with good intentions, the road to heaven was paved
with good deeds, hard work, discipline, and a demand for excellence
from each student. She had worked in the Newark Orphanage where
Remo had grown up and whenever he thought of her, he could almost
feel the bruises her ruler raps on the knuckles had given him when
she felt he was not trying hard enough.
"What do you make here?" Remo asked.
"Twenty-one thousand, three hundred, and twelve dollars," Miss
Feldman answered. Sister Mary Margaret had never seen a hundred
dollars at one time in her whole life.
"Why don't you try teaching these kids?" Remo asked.
"You're from the community school board?" Miss Feldman said
suspiciously.
"No."
"The central school board?"
"No."
"The financial control board?"
"No."
"The state superintendent's office?"
"No."
"The federal office of education?"
"No. I'm not from nobody. I'm just from me. And I'm wondering
why you don't teach these kids anything."
"Just from you?"
"Yes."
"Well, Mister Just-from-You, I've been in this school for eight
years. The first week I was here, they tried to rape me three
times. The first marking period, I failed two-thirds of the class
and the tires were slashed on my car. The second marking period, I
failed six kids and my car was set on fire. Next marking period,
more failures, and my dog's throat was cut in my apartment while I
slept. Then the parents picketed the school, protesting my racist,
antiblack attitudes.
"The school board, those paragons of backbone, suspended me for
three months. When I came back, I brought a bag of gold stars with
me. I haven't had any trouble since and I'm retiring next year.
What would you have expected me to do?"
"You could teach," Remo said.
"The essential difference between trying to teach this class and
trying to teach a gravel pit is that you can't get raped by a
gravel pit," Miss Feldman said. "Rocks don't carry knives."
She looked down at the papers in front of her. One paper had
five neat rows of five letters each. Twenty-five letters. Miss
Feldman marked it 100 percent with four gold stars.
"The valedictorian?" Remo asked.
"Yes. She always has trouble with the W's."
"If you tried to teach, could they learn?" Remo asked.
"Not by the time they reach me," Miss Feldman said. "This is a
senior class. If they're illiterate when they get here, they stay
illiterate. They could be taught in the early grades though. If
everybody would just realize that giving a failing mark to a black
kid doesn't mean that you're a racist who wants to go back to
slaveholding. But they have to do it in the early grades."
As Remo watched, a small tear formed in the inside corner of
Miss Feldman's left eye.
"And they don't," he said.
"They don't. And so I sit here putting gold stars on papers that
twenty years ago would have been grounds for expulsion, black
student or white student. What we've come to."
"I'm a friend of Tyrone's. How's he doing?"
"As compared to?"
"The rest of the class," Remo said.
"With luck, he'll go to prison before he's eighteen. That way
he'll never starve to death."
"If you had it in your power to decide, would you keep him
alive? Would you keep any of them alive?"
"I'd kill them all over the age of six. And I'd start fresh with
the young ones and make them work. Make them learn. Make them
think."
"Almost like a teacher," Remo said.
She looked up at him sadly. "Almost," she agreed.
Remo turned away and clapped Tyrone on the shoulder. He woke
with a start that nearly tipped over the desks.
"Come on, clown," Remo said. "Time to go home."
"Quittin' bell ring already?" Tyrone asked.
CHAPTER NINE
The fact that Tyrone Watson had made one of his infrequent
appearances in class was quickly noted by one Jamie Rickets, alias
Ali Muhammid, alias Ibn Faroudi, alias Aga Akbar, AKA Jimmy the
Blade.
Jamie talked briefly to Tyrone, then left Malcolm-King-Lumumba
School and jumped the wires on the first car he found with an
unlocked door and drove the twelve blocks back to Walton
Avenue.
In a pool hall, he found the vice counselor of the Saxon Lords
and related that Tyrone had mentioned he spent the night at the
Hotel Plaza in Manhattan. The vice counselor of the Saxon Lords
went to the corner tavern and told the deputy subregent of the
Saxon Lords who repeated the message to the deputy minister of war.
Actually, the Saxon Lords had no minister of war who would have a
deputy. But the title "deputy minister of war," it was decided, was
longer and more impressive sounding than minister of war.
The deputy minister of war repeated it to the sub-counselor of
the Saxon Lords, whom he found sleeping in a burned-out
laundromat.
Twenty five minutes later, the subcounselor finally found the
Saxon Lords' Leader for Life, sleeping on a bare mattress in the
first-floor-left apartment of an abandoned building.
The Leader for Life, who had held the job for less than twelve
hours since the sudden schoolyard demise of the last Leader for
Life, knew what to do. He got up from his mattress, brushed off
anything that might be crawling on him, and walked out onto Walton
Avenue where he extorted ten cents from the first person he saw, an
elderly black man on his way home from the night watchman's job he
had held for thirty-seven years.
He used the dime to phone a number in Harlem.
"De Lawd be with you," the phone was answered.
"Yeah, yeah," said the Leader for Life. "Ah jes finds out where
dey staying."
"Oh?" said the Reverend Josiah Wadson. "Where's that?"
"De Hotel Plaza down in de city."
"Very good," said Wadson. "You knows what to do?"
"Ah knows."
''Good. Take only yo' best mens."
"All my mens be my best mens. 'Ceppin Big-Big Pickens and he
still in Nooick."
"Don't mess things up," Wadson said.
"Ah doan."
The Leader for Life of the Saxon Lords hung up the pay telephone
in the little candy store. Then because he was Leader for Life and
leaders had to display their power, he yanked the receiver cord
from the body of the telephone.
He chuckled as he left the store on his way to round up a few of
his very, very best men.
CHAPTER TEN
"Where we goin'?" asked Tyrone.
"Back to the hotel."
"Sheeit. Whyn't yo' jes' leave me go?"
"I'm making up my mind whether to kill you or not."
"Dass not right. Ah never did nuffin' you."
"Tyrone, your presence on this earth is doing something to me.
You offend me. Now shut up, I'm trying to think."
"Sheeit, dat silly."
"What is?"
"Try'n-to think. Nobody try to think. Yo' jes' does it. It be
natural."
"Close your face before I close it for you," Remo said.
Tyrone did and slumped in the far corner of the cab's left rear
seat.
And as the cab driver tooled down toward Manhattan, four young
black men walked along the hallway of the sixteenth floor of the
Hotel Plaza toward the suite where a blood brother bellboy had told
them a white man was staying with an old Oriental.
Tyrone stayed quiet for a full minute, then could stay quiet no
more. "Ah doan lahk staying in dat place," he said.
"Why not?"
"Dat bed, it be hard."
"What bed?"
"Dat big bed wiffout de mattress. It be hard and hurt my back
and everyfing."
"The bed?" Remo asked.
"Yeah. Sheeit."
"The big hard white bed?"
"Yeah."
"The big hard white bed that curves up at both ends?" Remo
asked.
"Yeah. Dat bed."
"That's a bathtub, plungermouth. Close your face."
And while Remo and Tyrone discussed the latest in bathroom
furniture, the Leader for Life of the Saxon Lords put his hand on
the doorknob of Suite 1621 in the Plaza, turned it slightly, and
when he found the door unlocked and open, presented a pearly smile
of triumph to his three associates who grinned back and brandished
their brass knuckles and lead-filled saps.
The cab came across the bumpy, rutted Willis Avenue bridge into
northern Manhattan, and as the cab jounced up and down on the
pitted road surface, Remo wondered if anything worked anymore in
America.
The road he was riding on felt as if it hadn't been paved since
it was built. The bridge looked as if it had never been painted.
There was a school system that didn't teach and a police force that
didn't enforce the law.
He looked out at the buildings, the geometric row after row of
city slum buildings, factories, walkups.
Everything was going to rack and ruin. It sounded like a law
firm that America had on a giant retainer. Rack and Ruin.
Nothing worked anymore in America.
Meanwhile, the Leader for Life opened the door of Suite 1621
wide. Sitting on the floor in front of them, scribbling furiously
on parchment with a quill pen, was an aged Oriental. Tiny tufts of
hair dotted his head. A trace of wispy beard blossomed below his
chin. Seen from behind, his neck was thin and scrawny, ready for
wringing. His wrists, jutting out of his yellow robe, were
delicately thin, like the wrists of a skinny old lady. He must have
used a stick the other night in the schoolyard when he hit one of
the Lords, the new Leader for Life thought. But they were all
little kids anyway. Now he was going to see the real Saxon
Lords.
"Come in and close the door," Chiun said without turning. "You
are welcome to his place." His voice was soft and friendly.
The Leader for Life motioned his three followers to move into
the room, then closed the door and rolled his eyes toward the old
man with a smile. This was gonna be easy. Dat chinky mufu was gonna
be a piece of cake. A twinkie even.
Inside the cab as it turned south along the Franklin D.
Roosevelt East Side drive, Tyrone's mouth began to work as he tried
to formulate a sentence. But Remo was close to something. There was
a thought gnawing at him and he didn't want it interrupted by
Tyrone so he clapped a hand out across Tyrone's mouth and held it
there.
It had only been a few years before that a liberal mayor the
city's press had loved had left office and soon after one of the
city's major elevated highways had fallen down. Even though
millions had been spent allegedly keeping the road repaired,
nobody was indicted, no one went to jail, no one seemed to care.
A little bit later it turned out that the same administration
had been underestimating the cost of the city's pension agreements
by using actuarial tables from the early twentieth century when
people's average lifespan was a full twelve years shorter. Nobody
cared.
In any other city, there would have been grand jury probes,
governor's investigations, mayor's task forces looking into the
problem. New York City just yawned and went about its business, its
politicians even trying to promote the same mayor, the most inept
in a long tradition of inept mayors, into the presidency of the
United States.
Who could get upset in New York about just a few more
indignities? There were so many indignities day after day.
Remo wondered why, and then a thought came to him.
Was it really America that was so bad? That was falling apart?
Out there, across a land of three thousand miles, there were
politicians and government officials who tried to do a good job.
There Were cops more interested in catching muggers than in running
classes to teach people to be mugged successfully. There were roads
that were paved regularly so that people could drive on them with a
good chance of getting to their destination at the same time as
their auto's transmission. There were teachers who tried to teach.
And often succeeded.
It wasn't America that had failed. That had fallen apart. It was
New York, a city of permanently lowered expectations where people
lived and surrendered to a lifestyle worse than almost anywhere
else in the country. Where people gave up their right to shop in
supermarkets at low prices and instead supported neighborhood
delicatessens whose prices made the OPEC oil nations look
charitable. Where people calmly accepted the fact that it would
take forty-five minutes to move five blocks crosstown. Where people
surrendered the right to own automobiles because there was no place
to park them and no roads fit to drive them on and the streets were
unsafe even for automobiles. Where people thought it was a good
thing to have block patrols to fight crime, never considering that
in most cities, police forces fought crime.
And New Yorkers put up with all of it and smiled to each other
at cocktail parties, their shoes still reeking of the scent of
dog-doo that covered the entire city to an average depth of seven
inches, and clicked their glasses of white wine and said how they
just simply wouldn't live anyplace else.
When New York City went bankrupt every eighteen months in one of
its regularly scheduled bursts of Faroukian excess, its
politicians liked to lecture the country, while begging for
handouts, that New York was the heart and soul of America.
But it wasn't, Remo thought. It was the mouth of America, a
mouth that never was still, flapping from television stations and
networks and radio chains and magazines and newspapers, until even
some people living in the Midwest began to believe that if New York
City was so bad, well, then, by God, so was the rest of the
country.
But it wasn't, Remo realized. America worked. It was New York
City that didn't work. And the two of them weren't the same.
It made him feel better about his job.
"You can talk now," Remo said, releasing Tyrone's mouth.
"Ah forgot what ah was gonna say."
"Hold that thought," Remo said.
And as the cab pulled off the FDR drive at Thirty-fourth Street
to head west and north again to the Plaza Hotel-its driver figuring
to clip his passengers for an extra seventy cents by prolonging the
trip-the Leader for Life of the Saxon Lords put his heavy hand on
the shoulder of the aged Oriental in Suite 1621 at the Plaza.
"Awright, chinkey Charley," he said. "Yo' comin' wi£ us.
Yo' and that honkey mufu you runs 'round wif." He shook the seated
man's shoulder for emphasis. Or tried to shake the shoulder. It
seemed to him a little odd that the frail, less than
one-hundred-pound body did not move when he tried to shake it.
The old Oriental looked up at the Leader for Life, then at the
hand on his left shoulder, then up again and smiled.
"You may leave this world happy," he said with a gracious look.
"You have touched the person of the Master of Sinanju."
The Leader for Life giggled. The old gook, he talk funny. Like
one of dem faggy honkey perfessers that was always on de
television, talking, talking, all de time talking.
He giggled again. Showing de old chink a ting or two was gonna
be fun. Real fun.
He took the heavy lead sap out of his back pants pocket, just as
a cab pulled up in front of the Plaza on Sixtieth Street sixteen
floors below.
Remo paid the driver and steered Tyrone Walker up the broad
stone staircase into the lobby of the grand hotel.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
There were always sounds in a hotel corridor. There were people
with the television on and other people singing as they dressed.
Showers ran and toilets flushed and air conditioning hummed. In the
Plaza, everything was fudged over with the traffic noise of New
York City. The secret in sorting out the different noises was to
focus the ears as most people focused their eyes.
When Remo and Tyrone came off the elevator on the sixteenth
floor, Remo immediately heard the voices in Suite 1621. He could
hear Chiun's voice, and he could hear other voices. Three, perhaps
four.
Remo pushed Tyrone into the room first. Chiun was standing near
a window, his back toward the street. The afternoon sun silhouetted
him dark against the bright light pouring through the thin drapes
that ran almost all the way up to the fourteen-foot-high
ceiling.
Sitting on the floor facing Chiun were three young men wearing
the blue denim jackets of the Saxon Lords. Their hands were neatly
in their laps.
Stuffed off in a corner of the room was another young black man
and Remo could tell from the awkward splay of his limbs that it was
too late for him to worry about holding his hands properly.
Sprinkled haphazardly about his body was a collection of blackjacks
and brass knuckles.
Chiun nodded to Remo silently and kept speaking.
"Now try this," he said. "I will obey the law."
The three black youths spoke in unison. "Ah will obeys de
law."
"No, no, no," Chiun said. "With me. I, not Ah."
"I," the three men said slowly, with difficulty.
"Very good," Chiun said. "Now. I will obey. Not obeys.
Obey."
"I will obey."
"That's correct. Now. The law. Not de law. The. Your tongue must
protrude slightly from your mouth and be touched by your upper
teeth. Like this." He demonstrated. "The. The. The law."
"The law," the men said slowly.
"Fine. And now the whole thing. I will obey the law."
"Ah will obeys de law."
"What?" shrieked Chiun.
Remo laughed. "By George, I think they've got it. Now try them
on the rain in Spain."
"Silence… honkey," Chiun spat. He fixed the three youths
with hazel eyes that seemed cut from stone. "You. This time,
right."
"I. Will. Obey. The. Law." The three men spoke slowly,
carefully.
"Again."
"I will obey the law." Faster this time.
"Very good," Chiun said.
"Can we go now, massa?"
"It is not massa. It is Master. Master of Sinanju."
Tyrone said, "Brothers," and the three black men wheeled and
stared at him. Their eyes were alive with terror and not even
seeing Tyrone standing next to Remo alleviated it.
"Repeat your lessons for the nice gentleman," Chiun said.
As if they were all on one string, the three heads jerked around
to face Chiun.
"I will respect the elderly. I will not steal or kill. I will
obey the law."
"Very good," Chiun said.
Remo jerked his thumb toward the body in the corner. "Slow
learner?"
"I did not have a chance to find out. To teach them, first it
was necessary to get their attention. He happened to be the best
way to do it, since he had touched my person."
Chiun looked down at the three youths.
"You may stand now."
The three got slowly to their feet. They appeared ill at ease,
unsure of what to do with themselves. Tyrone, not having undergone
Chiun's good manners school, solved the problem by engaging them in
a complicated round robin of hand-slapping greetings, hands apart,
hands together, palms up, palms down, palms sliding across other
palms. It looked, Remo thought, like pattycake class at a mental
institution.
The three young men collected with Tyrone in a corner and
whispered to him. Tyrone came back to give the message to Remo as
they watched suspiciously.
"De Revin Wadson, he wanna talk to you."
"Who? Oh, yeah. The fence."
"Right. He wanna see you."
"Good. I want to see him too," Remo said.
"Dey say he know somefin' about de Missus Mueller," Tyrone
said.
"Where do I find him?" Remo asked.
"He gots de big 'partment up in Harlem. Dey takes you dere."
"Good. You can come too."
"Me? Whuffo?"
"In case I need a translator. And you three, get rid of your
garbage," Remo said, pointing to the body of the Saxon Lords'
Leader for Life, who, since touching Chiun, no longer led. Or
lived.
Ingrid did not like the Reverend Josiah Wadson, so at random
moments during the day, she jogged the toggle switch on the little
black box controlling the strangulation ring. And she smiled when
she was rewarded with a roar of pain from wherever in his apartment
Wadson was trying to rest.
Before setting foot in Wadson's apartment the night before, she
had guessed what she would find. Loud, grotesque, expensive
furniture, paid for with money that should have gone to the poor
whose case he was always talking up.
But Wadson's life style was lavish, even for her expectations.
And unusual.
He had two live-in maids, both young and white, both paid by the
federal government as program coordinators for Affirmative Housing
II. They looked as if they had majored in Massage Parlor. They
dressed like burlesque queens and they were both holding crystal
tumblers of whiskey when Ingrid and Wadson returned to the
apartment on the fringes of Harlem.
The main living room of the apartment was crammed full, like a
junk drawer in a kitchen sink. Statuary, oil paintings, metal
sculptures, gold medallions, jewelry were everywhere.
"Where did you get all this dross?" she asked Wadson, after she
dismissed the two maids and told them to take the rest of the week
off, a gift for loyal service from a grateful government.
"Deys gifts from faithful followers who join me in de Lawd's
woik."
"In other words, from poor people you fleeced."
Wadson tried to engage her with a "that's life" grin, wide
enough to show every one of his thirty-two teeth and most of the
gold that lined the biting surfaces.
"I thought as much," she said in disgust. To emphasize the
point, she pushed the toggle switch on the black box a millimeter
forward. The pain in his groin brought Wadson to his knees.
But she was truly surprised when she saw the rest of the
apartment. The living room, kitchen, and two bedrooms were in use.
But there were six other rooms in the apartment and each was
filled, from floor to ceiling, with television sets, radios, pots
and pans, stereo record players, hubcaps. As she went from room to
room looking at the treasure trove, it dawned on her what Wadson
was. He was a fence for the goods stolen by the street gangs.
It was a suspicion and she asked him if it were true.
Lying was out of the question, he knew. He grinned again.
She left him groaning on the floor of the living room and went
into the kitchen to make herself coffee. Only when the coffee had
been made and cooled and half consumed, did she return and lighten
the pressure on the strangulation ring.
It took an hour of rooting around for Wadson to find the device
that had been stolen from the Muellers' apartment. He handed it to
Ingrid, hoping for some sign of approval.
"You go to bed now," she said.
She stayed in a chair alongside the bed until she was sure
Wadson was asleep. Then she telephoned Spesk and described to him
the secret device and they shared a laugh.
She spent the night sitting in the chair next to Wadson's
bed.
She stood alongside him when he talked to the Saxon Lords about
how important it was to find the thin American and the Oriental,
and they both learned that the two targets had kidnapped one of the
Lords, Tyrone Walker. Wadson was at his unctuous worst in talking
to the Lords and it gave her pleasure to toy with the little switch
and bring the sweat out on his forehead and cause him to stumble
over his own words.
She was still at his side now, as he sat in a chair facing the
thin American and the ancient Oriental, and the tall thin black boy
who had accompanied them.
"Why he here?" Wadson asked, motioning to Tyrone. "Why is this
child here involved in the business of men?" He winced as the pain
reminded him of Ingrid standing behind his chair. "And women."
"He's here because I wanted him here," said Remo. "Now what do
you want with us?"
"You interested in de Missus Mueller, I hear."
"You hear good," said Remo.
"Well," said Tyrone.
"What?" asked Remo.
"You say he hear good," Tyrone said. "Dat wrong. You sposed say
he hear well. Ah learns dat in school."
"Shut up," Remo said. "I'm interested in two things," he said to
Waclson. "The person that killed her. And to get some kind of
device she may have had."
"Ah gots de dee-vice," said Wadson.
"I wants it," Remo said. "Dammit, Tyrone, now you've got me
doing it. I want it."
"Very good," Chiun said to Remo.
"I'll get it for you," Wadson said.
He rose slowly to his feet and walked toward a far corner of the
room. Chiun caught Remo's eyes and nodded slightly, calling his
attention to Wadson's labored walk and obvious pain.
Ingrid watched Wadson with the shrewd suspicious eyes of a
chicken farmer looking in the barnyard for fox tracks. Remo watched
Ingrid. He guessed her as the source of Wadson's pain but he could
not tell what kind. The black minister walked heavily, planting one
foot in front of the other delicately, as if he suspected the floor
was land-mined.
Wadson opened the drop front of an antique desk and took from
inside it a cardboard box almost a foot square. From the box, he
lifted a device that looked like a metronome with four arms. Three
wires led out of the machine.
He brought it back and handed it to Remo. Wadson walked back to
his chair. Ingrid smiled as he raised his eyes to hers in an
unspoken appeal to be allowed to sit. She nodded slightly and,
shielded from the view of the others by the backs of the large
chair, lightened the pressure on the toggle switch slightly.
Wadson's sigh of relief filled the room.
"What's it do?" Remo asked, after turning the metronome over and
over in his hand. He had never understood machinery. This looked
like just another dippy toy.
"Dunno," Wadson said. "But that's it."
Remo shrugged. "One last thing. Big-Big somebody. He killed Mrs.
Mueller. Where is he?"
"I hear he's in Newark."
"Where?" asked Remo.
"Ah'm lookin' for him," Wadson said.
"If he's in Newark, how'd you get this?" asked Remo.
"Somebody left it outside my door with a note dat the government
was looking for it," Wadson said.
"I think that's crap, but we'll let it pass," Remo said. "I want
this Big-Big."
"What'll you do for me?" Wadson said. "Iffen I find him?"
"Let you live," Remo said. "I don't know what's wrong with you,
Reverend, but you look like you're in pain. Whatever it is, it'll
be nothing compared to what I've got for you, if you're not
straight with me."
Wadson raised his hands in a gesture that might have been
protest, or the instinctive movement of a man trying to hold back a
brick wall that was ready to fall on him.
"I'm not jivin' you," he said. "I got peoples all over de
street. I find out soon."
"You let me know right away."
"Who are you anyway?" asked Wadson.
"Let's just say I'm not a private citizen."
"You got family? Mrs. Mueller you family?"
"No," said Remo. I'm an orphan. The nuns raised me. Chiun here
is my only family."
"Adopted," Chiun said, lest anyone get the idea that he had
white blood in him.
"Where'd you learn to do what you do?" Wadson asked.
"Just what is it I do?"
"I heard you kinda cuffed around de Lawds de other night. That
kind of do."
"Just a trick," Remo said.
Tyrone was walking about the room, looking at the statues and
the small pieces of crystal and jewelry on the shelves.
"Don' you go liftin' none of them," Wadson yelled. "Dey
mine."
Tyrone looked miffed that anyone might think him capable of
theft. He stepped away from the shelf and continued walking around
the room. He stopped near Ingrid, saw what she was doing, and with
the quick practiced hands of a purse snatcher, reached over and
snatched the black box from her hand.
"Look at this," he said, holding it forward to Remo.
"Boy, don' touch that switch," Wadson said. "Please."
"Which switch?" said Tyrone. "Dis one here?" He put his fingers
on the toggle switch.
"Please, boy. Let go of it."
"Give it back to me, Tyrone," Ingrid said coolly. "Just hand it
back to me."
"What's it do?" Tyrone asked.
"It's a pain-killing device for people with migraine headaches,"
she said. "The reverend suffers greatly from that feeling of
tightness around his head. That relieves it. Please give it back to
me." She extended her hand for the little black box.
Tyrone looked at Remo who shrugged. "Give it back to her," he
said.
"I do," said Tyrone. He started to extend the little box, but
couldn't resist giving the switch a tiny push.
"Aiieee!" screamed Wadson.
Ingrid snatched the box from Tyrone's hands and quickly moved
the switch back. Wadson sipped air in relief, so deeply it sounded
as if someone had turned on a vacuum cleaner. He was still hissing
when they left. Ingrid stood behind him smiling.
In the hallway walking downstairs, Remo asked, "What do you
think, Little Father?"
"About what?"
"About Reverend Wadson?"
"There is less there than meets the eye," said Chiun.
"And about this machine of the Muellers?"
"It is a machine. All machines are alike. They break. Send it to
Smith. He likes to play with toys."
The device was delivered to Smith's office in Rye, New York at
two a.m. by a cabdriver who had been paid with half of a hundred
dollar bill and a grinding brief pain in his right kidney. He was
told to deliver it fast and he would get the other half of the
hundred at the Hotel Plaza desk and would not get the rest of the
pain.
It was the middle of the night and Tyrone was asleep in the
bathroom when there was a knock on the door.
"Who is it?" Remo called.
"The bellboy, sir. There's a phone call for you. And your phone
is out of order."
"I know. I'll take it in the lobby."
"I received the package," Smith told Remo when he picked up the
telephone downstairs.
"Oh, Smitty. Nice to hear from you again. You recruit my
replacement yet?"
"I only hope that if I do he will be more reasonable to deal
with than you are." Remo was surprised. Smith never showed temper.
Or any other emotion for that matter. The realization that this was
a first chastened Remo.
"What's with the device?" he asked. "Any value?"
"None. It's a lie detector that runs on induction."
"What's that mean?"
"They don't have to attach wires to the subject. So it's useful
in questioning a suspect whom you don't want to know he's a
suspect. You can ask him questions and hook that device up to the
bottom of his chair and it'll register whether he's telling the
truth or not."
"Sounds good," Remo said.
"Fair," said Smith. "We've got better stuff now. And with
pentothal, nobody in tradework uses devices much anymore."
"Okay, so I'm done here and now I can get about my other
business?"
"Which is?"
"Finding the man who killed that old lady to steal a machine
that didn't have any value."
"That'll have to wait," Smith said. "You're not done."
"What else?" Remo asked.
"Don't forget. I told you about Colonel Speskaya being in the
country and two other weapons he was trying to get his hands
on."
"Probably more lie detectors," Remo said.
"I doubt it. He's too good to be fooled. So that's your job.
Find out what he's after and get it for us."
"And when I'm done with that?"
"Then you can do anything you want. Really, Remo, I don't know
why this is so important to you."
"Because somebody out there put an icepick in an old lady's eye
just for fun. Killing for sport cheapens the work I do. I'm going
to keep the amateurs out."
"Making the world safe for assassins?" Smith asked.
"Making it unsafe for animals."
"You do it. I just hope you can tell the difference," said Smith
before the telephone line clicked in Remo's ear.
Remo put down the telephone with the same faint feeling of
unease that conversations with Smith always gave him. It was as if,
without saying a word, Smith entered a continuous moral judgment
against Remo. But where was the immorality since it had been Smith
who virtually kidnaped Remo from his straight middle-America life
to make him a killer? Were moral judgments only valid for what
other people did, and expediency the only yardstick one used on
himself?
Chiun noticed the puzzled look on Remo and was about to speak
when they heard the scratching on the bathroom door.
Simultaneously, they decided to ignore Tyrone.
"You worry, my son, because you are yet a child."
"Dammit, Chiun, I'm no child. I'm a grown man. And I don't like what's going down. Smith's got me running
around looking for two more secret weapons and I just… well,
I'm just not interested in it all anymore."
"You will always be a child if you expect men to be more than
they are. If you are walking through the woods, you do not get
angry at a tree that happened to grow up directly in your path. The
tree could not help it. It existed. You do not sit on the ground in
front of that tree and lecture it. You ignore it. And if you cannot
ignore it, you remove it. So you must act with people. They are,
for the most part, like trees. They do what they do because they
are what they are."
"And so I should ignore all those that I can and remove those
that I can't?"
"Now you are seeing the light of wisdom," Chiun said, folding
his hands in front of him with a movement as smooth as that of an
underwater plant.
"Chiun, the world you give me is a world without morality. Where
nothing counts for anything except keeping your elbow straight and
breathing right and attacking correctly. You give me no morality
and that makes me happy. Smith gives me a shitpot full of morality
and it disgusts me. But I like his world better than yours."
Chiun shrugged. "That is because you do not understand the real
meaning of my world. I do not give you a world without morality. I
give you a world of total morality but the only morality you
totally control is your own. Be moral. You can do no greater thing
in your life." He moved his arms around in a large slow circle.
"Try to make other people moral and you are trying to ignite ice
with a match."
Tyrone stopped scratching. "Hey, when ah gets out of here?" his
muffled voice called. Remo looked toward the locked bathroom
door.
"And him?"
"He is what he is," Chiun said. "A candy wrapper on the street,
an orange peel in the garbage. A man who decides to worry about
everyone will have no shortage of things to keep him busy."
"You say I should let him go?"
"I say you should do whatever makes you a better person," Chiun
said.
"And what about the man who killed Mrs. Mueller? Let him go
too?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because you need that one if you are to be at peace with
yourself. So find him and do what it is you wish with him."
"That's a selfish view of life, Little Father. Tell me. Don't
you ever wish you could just get rid of all the evil people in the
world, all the garbage, all the animals?"
"No," Chiun said.
"Did you ever?" Remo asked.
Chiun smiled. "Of course. I was a child once too, Remo."
CHAPTER TWELVE
When Remo's cab pulled up in front of Reverend Wadson's
apartment building, the crowd was pulsating on the street and
sidewalk. Some carried signs, others were chanting. "Brutality.
Atrocity."
Remo tapped the driver on the shoulder and motioned him to the
curb.
"Wait here for me," he said.
The cabbie looked at the two hundred people milling around
across the street, then swiveled on his seat to look at Remo.
"I'm not staying here, buddy. Not with that gang over there.
They'll use me for chum if they spot me."
"I'd like to stay and discuss it with you," said Remo, "but I
don't have the time." His hand slipped forward past the driver,
turned the ignition key off, and plucked it from its slot on the
steering column, all in one deft movement. "You wait. Lock the
doors, but wait. I'll be right back."
"Where you going?"
"Over there." Remo motioned to the apartment house.
"You'll never be back."
Remo dropped the keys into his trouser pocket. As he trotted
across the street, he could hear the heavy mechanical click of the
four door locks in the cab behind him.
The crowd was being kept at bay by the locked front doors of the
apartment building. Inside the lobby, a uniformed doorman kept
motioning the people to leave.
"What's going on?" Remo asked the question of a young man with a
shaved head and a Fu Manchu mustache who stood on the fringe of the
crowd.
The man looked at Remo. His face curled down in disgust and he
turned away silently.
"We'll try one more time," Remo said gently. "What's going on?"
He punctuated the question, using his right hand to grip the
muscles on both sides of the man's lower spine.
The man straightened up from the pain, taller than he had ever
stood before in his life.
"They got Reverend Wadson."
"Who's they?"
"I don't know who they is. His enemies. Enemies of the people.
The oppressors."
"What do you mean, they got Wadson?"
"He's dead. They killed him. Cut him up and butchered him. Let
go, that hurts."
Remo did not let go. "And 'they' did it?"
"That's right."
"And what do these people want? Why are they marching around
here?"
"They want justice."
"They think you get it by singing?"
The young man tried to shrug. It felt as if his shoulders were
going up and leaving his spinal column behind. He changed his
mind.
"Police arrive yet?" asked Remo.
"They just been called."
"Thank you. A pleasure talking with you," Remo said.
He released the young man and moved along the perimeter of the
crowd. If he went through the front door, he'd just open a path for
this mob. Behind him, the young man tried to marshal his breath to
sic the crowd on Remo but every time he tried to fill his lungs to
shout, the pain returned to his back. He decided that silence was
golden.
Remo surged forward and back with the crowd, moving from spot to
spot, being seen, then disappearing, visible, invisible, never in
anyone's field of vision for more than a split second, until he had
moved to the alley alongside the apartment building. The alley was
barred by a locked iron gate eight feet high, with spikes atop it,
and barbed wire laced in and out of the spikes.
Remo grabbed the heavy lock and wrenched it with his right hand
and the gate gave way smoothly. Remo slipped aside, then punished
the lock again until it merged with the metal of the fence and
stayed closed. The fire escapes were in the rear of the building
and Remo went up the fourteen stories until he got to a window
outside Wadson's apartment. He was ready to push open the window
when the drapes inside were flung back and the window was
opened.
Ingrid stifled a scream when she saw Remo on the fire escape,
then said, "Thank God you're here."
"What happened?" Remo asked.
"Josiah's dead." Tears poured from her eyes.
"I know. Who did it?"
"A blond man. With a foreign accent. I was sleeping but he came
into the apartment and I heard him talking to Josiah and then I
heard screams and when I got up, Josiah was all cut up and dead.
The blond man was running out the door. I called the doorman to
stop him, but I guess he escaped."
"Why are you running away before the police arrive?"
"This'll cost me my job if I'm found here. I was supposed to be
doing a film documentary. I wasn't supposed to fall in love with a
black man." She climbed out onto the fire escape. "I loved that
man. I really did." She buried her face in Remo's shoulder and
wept. "Please get me away from here."
"All right," Remo said.
Remo closed the window again, then hustled her down the fire
escape and out another alley behind the building. It exited onto
another side street, secured by an identical heavy iron gate. Remo
snapped the steel with his hands. He turned to see Ingrid staring
at the twisted metal.
"How'd you do that?" she asked.
"Must have been defective," Remo answered, as he steered her
around the corner to the cab. The driver was lying on the front
seat of the cab, trying to keep out of sight and Remo had to thump
loudly on the window to get him to look up. Remo gave him his keys
back and the driver peeled rubber leaving the neighborhood. The
crowd had already grown larger in front of the apartment building
because the word had spread that the television cameramen were
coming and no one wanted to miss his chance to be on the tube.
Especially the veterans of the civil rights riots who left their
liquor stores and their card games to come over and carry
signs.
When Ingrid came into the Plaza suite with Remo, Chiun said
nothing, but saw the boxy lump hidden inside her purse.
While she was in the bathroom, Remo said, "Wadson's dead. I got her out of there. She's staying with us
awhile."
"Good ting," Tyrone said. "She can sleep in my bed. She some
hunk of honkey."
"Lacks bulk," Chiun said.
"Hands off," Remo said to Tyrone.
"Sheeit," said Tyrone and went back to watching the rerun of
Leave it to Beaver, Chiun changed it to Sesame
Street.
While Remo had been at Wadson's apartment, the management had
installed a new telephone in the suite. And now, while Ingrid was
at the drugstore in the Plaza lobby, the phone rang.
"Yeah," said Remo, expecting to hear Smith's voice.
"This is Speskaya," a voice said. There was something in the
voice that Remo remembered. But where? Who? The voice was not
accented but sounded as if it should have been. "I killed
Wadson."
"What do you want?" Remo asked.
"To offer you work. You and the Oriental gentleman."
"Sure. Let's talk about it," Remo said.
"That is just too easily said for me to believe you."
"Would you believe I want your job if I say I don't want it?"
Remo asked.
"Job?" Chiun said. He was sitting on the sofa. He looked toward
Remo. "Someone is offering us a job?"
Remo raised his hand to silence Chiun.
Speskaya said, "It is difficult to gauge your motives." The
voice was familiar, but Remo could not put it together with a
face.
"I can't help that," Remo said.
"What is the offer?" Chiun said.
Remo waved a hand to shush him.
"You work for a country which is breaking down,"
Speskaya said. "People are butchered in their homes. You, who
are no stranger to death, find that offensive. Why not come over
with us?"
"Look, let's stop mousing around. I've got a secret weapon you
want. I'll give it to you. You tell me about the secret weapons
you're working on and we'll be square and you can go back to
Russia," Remo said.
"Secret weapons? I'm working on?"
"Yeah. Two of them."
There was a long pause, then a boyish laugh over the telephone.
"Of course. Two secret weapons."
"What's so funny?" Remo said.
"Never mind," Speskaya said.
"Is it a deal?"
"No. The device you have is nothing but a low-level biofeedback
device that works off induction and is virtually without
worth."
"And your two secret weapons?" Remo said.
"They are of great worth. Great worth."
"I bet," said Remo.
"There is a club called The Iron Dukes on Walton Avenue. I will
meet you there tonight. I will tell you about my weapons and I will
expect your answer about working for us. Nine o'clock."
"I'll be there."
"The Oriental too."
"We'll be there," Remo said.
"Good thing, fella. Look forward to seeing you," Speskaya said.
And as the telephone clicked, Remo recognized the voice. It was
that jovial "fella" that did it. The man he had met at the
excavation at the Mueller's apartment, the man whose knee he had
banged up. Tony Spesk, alias Speskaya, Russian colonel and spy.
"Tonight," Remo said to Chiun, just as Ingrid came back into the
room. "We'll find out what two weapons he's working on."
"And then?"
"Then we get rid of him and that's that," Remo said.
"You have no idea what his special weapons are?" Chiun
asked.
Remo shrugged. "Who cares? More machinery."
"You are a fool," said Chiun.
A few moments later, Ingrid remembered something she had
forgotten at the drugstore. She went back downstairs and called a
number on a pay phone.
"Anthony," she said. "I just overheard. They plan to kill you
tonight."
"Too bad," Spesk said. "They would have been most valuable
additions to our arsenal."
"What now?" Ingrid asked.
"Use the white ring. And let me know how it works."
On Halsey Street in Newark, the burly black man found what he
was looking for. He had passed up two Volkswagens to find an
unlocked car big enough for him to sit in comfortably.
He opened the door of the new Buick and hunched over close to
the dashboard, bridging the ignition with a pair of alligator clips
he carried in his pocket. From his belt, he unhooked a huge ring of
keys, dwarfed by his big heavy hand, and sorted through them until
he found one that seemed right and put it in the ignition. He
turned it, the starter growled, and the motor started smoothly.
Big-Big Pickens drove into traffic with a smile on his face. He
was going home and getting those Saxon Lords straightened out.
Just turns his back, and some honkey and little old chink, they
been busting up the gang, and two of the leaders dead, and the
Reverend Wadson dead, and about time for all this nonsensery to
end. He patted the ice pick he carried in his hip pocket, its
business end stuck into a cork. On a whim
he removed it and slammed it deep into the car seat. And he smiled again.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
In the living room Remo had changed into a black tee shirt and
black slacks.
"Remo." Ingrid's voice was a soft call from the bedroom
door.
Remo nodded and stood. Chiun was wearing a thin black robe.
Tyrone still wore the same denim jacket, jeans, and dirty white tee
shirt he had worn for three days.
"We'll be leaving right away," Remo said, looking through the
window at nighttime New York. "But there's something to do
first."
The old man nodded.
Inside, Ingrid sat on the edge of the bed. She had just come
from the shower and wore only a thin blue satin robe.
"Must you go?" she said to Remo. With her faint European accent,
her voice sounded wistful and lost.
"Afraid so."
"That man is a bad man. He killed Josiah."
"You mean Spesk? Just another agent. No problem."
She put her hands up to Remo's arms and pulled him closer to
her, until his knees touched hers.
"I would be shattered if you were hurt… or…"
"Killed? I don't expect to be."
"But he is a killer."
"That's right, isn't it? And you saw him running away after he
killed Wadson."
Ingrid nodded. She trailed her hands around Remo's back until
they were at the base of his spine. She pulled him to her and
buried her face in his stomach.
"Yes." Her voice seemed choked. "I saw him. I will never forget
him."
"Tall, lean man. Thinning blond hair. Little scar over the left
eye."
He felt her head nod against his stomach. Then he felt her hands
at his waist, fumbling with the belt of his trousers.
"Remo," she said softly, "this may be strange, but in just these
few hours… there has come to be… I can't explain it.
You'll laugh."
"Never laugh at a woman in love," Remo said.
His trousers were open now and she busied her hands and her face
with his body.
Then she fell back onto the bed, her right hand holding his left
wrist and pulling him down to her.
"Come, Remo. Make love to me. Now. I can't wait."
The front of her robe fell open and Remo slipped down onto her
blond goddess body. Mechanically, he began sex. He felt her right
arm leave his wrist and reach up under the pillow at the headboard
of the bed. She put her left arm around his neck and pulled his
face down to her so he could not see what she was doing.
He felt the slight shift in her body weight as her right hand
returned toward her waist. He felt the fingers slide in between their stomachs and then he felt the constriction as
the hard white metal ring was placed on his body.
Remo pulled back and looked down at the white ring. Ingrid
reached again over her head and had the small black box in her
hand, with the red toggle switch in the center.
She smiled at him, a vicious smile that was as foreign to love
as it was to warmth.
"And now, the charade ends."
"As all good charades must," Remo said.
"Do you know what that ring is?"
"Some kind of pressure device, I guess," Remo said.
"As effective as a guillotine." She scootched herself up into a
sitting position in bed.
"Is this what you used on Wadson?" Remo asked.
"Yes. I used it all over his body. To mutilate him. He was
gross. You learn very quickly."
"No," said Remo. "I didn't learn. I knew."
It was time for Ingrid to be surprised. "You knew?"
"When you said you saw Spesk running" away after killing Wadson.
I broke Spesk's kneecap three nights ago. He isn't doing much
running these days."
"And yet you came in here? Like a lamb to slaughter?"
"I'm not exactly a lamb."
"You will be. A lamb. Or a gelding."
"What is it you want?" Remo asked.
"It is simple. You join Spesk and me. You work with us."
"I don't think so," Remo said.
"The old one would. I have heard him today. He would go wherever
the money is best. Why is he so reasonable and you so
unreasonable?"
"We're both unreasonable. Just in different ways," Remo
said.
"Then your answer is no."
"You got it, sweetheart."
She looked down at the red switch in her hand.
"You know what happens next, don't you?"
"Go ahead," Remo said. "But know this. You die. You can play
with your toy there and maybe hurt me but I'll have time to kill
you and you know I will. And you will die very slowly. Very
painfully."
His deep brown eyes that seemed to have no pupils met hers. They
stared at each other. She looked away, and as if backing down from
his stare had thrown her into a rage, she slammed her hand onto the
red toggle switch, pushing it all the way forward. Baring her teeth
and gums with lips twisted open in hatred, she looked up at
Remo.
He still knelt in the same place on the bed. His face showed no
emotion, no pain. Her eyes met his again and Remo laughed. He
reached onto the bed and picked up the two halves of the white
ring, split cleanly, like an undersized doughnut cut in two by a
very precise knife. He tossed them to her.
"Called muscle control, kid."
He stood up and zipped his trousers and fastened his belt.
Ingrid scurried across the bed and reached into her handbag on the
end table. She pulled out a small pistol and rolled toward Remo,
aiming the gun at him in an easy, unhurried motion.
As her finger began to tighten on the trigger, Remo picked up
half of the white ring and tossed it at her, skidding it off the
ends of his fingertips with enough force that it whirred as it
traveled the four feet to Ingrid.
Her finger squeezed the trigger just as the piece of the ring
hit the barrel of the gun with hammer force, driving the muzzle
upward under Ingrid's chin. It was too late for her brain to recall
the firing signal.
The gun exploded, one muffled shot, which ripped upward through
Ingrid's chin, passed through the bottom half of her skull, and
buried itself in her brain.
Eyes still open, lips still pulled back in a cat snarl of anger,
she dropped the gun and fell onto her side on the bed. The gun
clanked to the floor. A thin trail of blood poured from the bullet
wound in her chin, slipping down throat and shoulders until it
reached the blue satin of her robe which absorbed it and turned
almost black.
Remo looked at the dead body, shrugged casually, and left the
room.
In the living room, without turning from the window through
which he assayed New York City, Chiun said, "I'm glad that's over
with."
"Did ah hears a shot?" asked Tyrone.
"You sure do," said Remo. "Time to go."
"Go where?"
"You're going home, Tyrone."
"You lettin' me go?"
"Yeah."
"Good thing," said Tyrone, jumping to his feet. "So long."
"Not so quick. You're going with us," Remo said.
"Whuffo?"
"Just in case this big bear or whatever his name is is around. I
want you to point him out to me."
"He a big mean muvver. He kill me if he find out I finger him
for you."
"And what will I do?" Remo asked.
"Aw, sheeeit," said Tyrone.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
All the streetlights were out on the block which housed the Iron
Dukes' clubrooms.
Remo stood under one of the unworking lights and touched his toe
to the broken glass on the street. The block seemed weighted down
with summer dampness. All the building lights on the street were
out too and Tyrone looked around nervously.
"Ah don' like dis place," he said. "Too dark."
"Somebody made it that way for us," Remo said. "Are they there,
Chiun?"
"Yes," Chiun said. "Across the
street."
"How many of them?"
"Many bodies," Chiun said. "Perhaps thirty."
"Wha' you talkin' 'bout?" Tyrone asked.
"Tyrone," Remo explained patiently. "Somebody just busted all
the streetlights to make this block dark. And now whoever did it is
hiding around here, waiting… don't look around like that, you dip… hiding around here
waiting for us."
"Ah don' like dat," Tyrone said. "What's we gone do?"
"What we're going to do is Chiun and I are going up to see
Spesk. You're going to stay down here and see if you see Big-Big
whatsisface. And when I come down, you point him out to me."
"Ah don' wanna."
"You better," Remo said. They left Tyrone standing at the curb
and followed a small single light upstairs into a large office that
had a desk at the far end of the room.
Behind the desk sat Tony Spesk, good old Tony, appliance
salesman, Carbondale, Illinois, AKA Colonel Speskaya, NKVD. His
gooseneck lamp was twisted so it shone in his visitors' faces.
"We meet again," Spesk said. "Ingrid is dead, of course."
"Of course," Remo said. He took a few steps forward into the
room.
"Before you try anything foolish," Spesk said, "I should advise
you that there is an electronic eye in this room. If you attempt to
reach me, you will break the beam and set off a crossfire of
machine guns. Do not be foolish."
Chiun looked at the walls of the vacant room and nodded. On the
left wall, there were electric eye units starting six inches above
the floor, and then one each foot higher until they stopped eight
feet above the floor, one foot below the ceiling. He nodded to
Remo.
"Now, have you considered my offer?" Spesk said.
"Yes. Considered and rejected," Remo said.
"That's a shame," said Spesk. "I would not have thought you were
patriots."
"Patriotism has nothing to do with it," said Remo. "We just
don't like you people."
"Russians have been worthless since the time of Ivan the Great,"
said Chiun.
"The Terrible, you mean," Spesk said.
"The Great," Chiun insisted.
"He paid on time," Remo explained.
"Well, then I guess there's nothing more to talk about," Spesk
said.
"One thing," said Remo. "These two weapons you're after. What
are they?"
"You don't know, do you?" asked Spesk after a pause.
"No," said Remo.
"The old man knows though. Don't you?"
Remo looked over to see Chiun nod.
"Well, if you know so much, Chiun, why didn't you tell me?" Remo
asked.
"Sometimes it is easier to talk to Tyrone," Chiun said.
"Tell me now. What two weapons?" Remo said.
"You," said Chiun. "And me."
"Us?" Rerno said.
"We," Chiun said.
"Sheeit. All this for that."
"Enough," said Spesk. "We cannot deal and that is that. You may
leave and later I will leave. And perhaps we will meet again
someday."
"We're the weapons you wanted?" Remo asked again.
Spesk nodded, his thin blond hair splashing about his face as he
did.
"You're a jerk," Remo said.
"Time now for you to leave," Spesk said.
"Not yet," Remo said. "You understand it's nothing personal but,
well, Chiun and I don't like too many people to know about what
work we do and who we work for. And you know a little too
much."
"Remember the electric eyes," Spesk said confidently.
"Remember the Alamo," said Remo. He rocked back onto his left
foot, then moved forward toward the invisible strings of light
reaching from left wall to right wall. Three feet before reaching
the beams, he turned toward the wall, reached up high with his
right foot, followed with his left foot and launched his body
upward. His stomach came within an eighth of an inch of hitting the
ceiling as he turned onto his back, floating over the topmost beam
as if it were the bamboo pole at a high-jump event. Then Remo was
over the lights, onto Spesk's side of the room. He landed on his
feet soundlessly.
The Russian colonel's eyes opened wide in shock and horror. He
got heavily to his feet behind the desk, his left knee still
defective where Remo had damaged it.
He moved away from Remo.
"Listen," he said. His Chicago middle-America accent had
vanished. He spoke now with the thick guttural rasp of a native
Russian. "You don't want to kill me. I'm the only one who can get
you out of here alive. It's a trap."
"We know that," Remo said. "We'll take our chances."
He moved toward Spesk and Spesk dove for the desk drawer. His
hand was into the drawer closing around a gun, when Remo snatched
up the gooseneck lamp from the desk and looped it over Spesk's
head, around his throat, and yanked him back from the revolver. He
tied the gooseneck in one large knot and dropped Spesk's body to
the floor. So much for the Russian spies; so much for the secret
weapons.
As Remo was vaulting back over the electric eyes, now visible in
the pitch-black room, he said, "Why didn't you tell me, Chiun?
About the weapons?"
"Who can explain anything to a white man?" Chiun said. He was
already at the door and going down the steps.
Except for the sucking of air by people who didn't know how to
breathe correctly, the street outside the Iron Dukes' was silent
when Remo and Chiun came through the door and stood on the
sidewalk.
"Still say thirty?" Remo asked.
Chiun cocked his head to listen. "Thirty-four," he said.
"That's not bad. I hope one of them is the one I want. Where the
hell is Tyrone?" Remo said.
"One of the thirty-four," Chiun said, just as they heard a roar.
Tyrone's roar.
"There they are. Get dem. Get dem. Dey kidnap me and
everyfing."
Like predatory animals whose coats blended in with the grass,
the black youths of the Saxon Lords rose up out of their protective
coloration of night and with a full-throated roar charged across
the street toward Remo and Chiun.
"When I get that Tyrone," Remo said, "I'm going to fix him
good."
"Back on that, are you?" Chiun said, just as the first wave of
attackers reached them, brandishing clubs and chains, knives and
tire irons.
Chiun blended a four-armed lug wrench into the thoracic cavity
of one bruiser and drifted to the left, his black robe swirling
about him, as Remo went toward the right.
"Damned right," Remo called. "He needs a good lesson. Where are
you, Tyrone?"
The air was filled with rocks being thrown by the Saxon Lords,
hitting only other Saxon Lords. One thought he saw Remo drifting by
him and slashed out wildly with his seven-inch bladed hunting
knife, neatly severing the carotid artery of his cousin.
"Where the hell is he?" Remo's voice rang out. "Now I know how
Stanley felt looking for Livingstone."
Remo ducked under one flailing tire iron and came up with the
tips of his fingers into a throat.
He went around two more of the gang who had started to fight
with each other because one had stepped on the other's new
platforms and scuffed the leather.
"Tell me if you see Tyrone," Remo said.
"Tyrone, he back dere," said one of the young men, just before
his head was laid open by a chain swung by his comrade-in-arms.
"Thank you," Remo said. To the other he said, "Good form."
He was in the heart of the gang now, moving away from the Iron
Dukes' building, working slowly across the street.
And on the sidewalk across the street, Big-Big Pickens saw the
Saxon Lords disorganized and dropping. He craned his neck to look
over the crowd but could see no sign of the white man or the old
Oriental. But every few seconds, two more Saxon Lords would drop
and he could tell where they had been.
He decided that Newark was really nice this time of year and
stuck his icepick back into the protective cork and put it into his
rear pocket, then turned and walked away.
"There you are, Tyrone," Remo said. Tyrone was standing alone at
the fringe of the crowd. "You've got one helluva nerve."
Tyrone put his hands up to protect himself, just as Chiun
arrived.
"Here I thought we were friends and all," Remo said.
"We is. I just findin' Big-Big for you. Dere he goes."
Tyrone pointed to a huge black figure running down the
street.
"Thanks, Tyrone. Chiun, you keep an eye on him."
Remo was off then, running after Big-Big Pickens.
The big man heard the roar of the street fight behind him and
glanced over his shoulder. He felt a tingle of fear in his
shoulders as he saw the thin white man, wearing the black slacks
and tee shirt, running after him, gaining on him. Then he
stopped.
He nothing but some skinny honkey, he thought. He ducked into an
alley, moving back into the shadows, waiting for Remo to enter. He
took his pick from his pocket and held it over his head, ready to
bring it down into the base of Remo's skull when he entered the
alley.
He heard Remo's footsteps approaching on the run. Big-Big
coughed, with a smile on his face, just to let the white man know
where he was. In case he hadn't seen Pickens enter the alley.
The running stopped. And then there was no sound.
Pickens pressed his back against the brick wall of the building,
waiting for Remo to be silhouetted in the dim light at the alley's
entrance. But he saw nothing.
He waited a few long seconds that seemed like minutes, and then
took a step away from the wall. Remo must be lurking outside the
alley waiting for him to come out. Well, they would see who would
outwait the other, he thought.
Big-Big Pickens felt a small touch on his shoulder. He wondered
what it was. It turned into a tap.
Pickens wheeled around. Remo was standing there, a broad smile
on his face.
"Looking for me?" he asked.
Big-Big recoiled in shock, then slashed down with the icepick he
remembered holding over his head. Remo moved back slightly,
seemingly no more than an inch or two, but the pick missed.
"You're Pickens?" Remo said.
"Yeah, mufu."
"You're the one who did in the old lady? Mrs. Mueller?"
"Yeah. Ah did it."
"Tell me. Was it fun? Did you enjoy it?"
"Nots much fun as giving you dis," said Pickens, running forward
like a bull, the pick held close to his stomach, waiting to close
on Remo so he could bring one heavy hand up and bury the point deep
into Remo's belly.
He looked up and stopped. He could not see the white man. Where
was he? He turned. The man was behind him.
"You're really garbage, you know that?" Remo said.
"Ah garbages yo", said Big-Big, charging again.
Remo moved out of his way and tripped the huge man. Pickens
sprawled across the alley. The rough concrete surface scratched his
cheek.
"You know," Remo said, standing over Pickens. "I don't think I
really like you. On your feet."
Big-Big got to his knees and put a hand down to steady himself
and lift himself to his feet.
Then he felt a foot smash into his broad nose. He could hear the
bones crack and a whoosh of blood come pouring down through his
nostrils.
His head snapped backward but he recovered and got to his
feet.
"You're the big pick man on the block, huh?" Remo said. "Is your
pick as sharp as this?"
And Pickens felt what seemed to be a knifeblade in the left side
of his stomach. He looked down for the blood, but he saw nothing.
Only the white man's hand slowly pulling away. But the pain. The
pain. It felt like a hot poker was lying on his skin, and he knew
that hurt, because he had done it to someone one night.
"As sharp as that?" Remo taunted.
Holding his icepick, Pickens turned, flailing about with his
right arm, trying to find his tormentor.
But Remo was behind him. And Pickens heard the voice again,
mocking him. "As hard as this?"
And there was a blow into Pickens's back. He could feel it
stowing in his ribs on the right. And then it was repeated on the
left side and more ribs went.
"Did the old lady scream when you killed her, Pig-Pig?" Remo
asked. "Did she scream like this?"
He tried not to but the pain in his neck demanded nothing but a
scream. There were fingers on his neck and they felt as if they
were tearing through his skin and flesh to get to his adam's apple,
Pickens screamed. And screamed again.
"Do you think it hurt this bad, Pig-Pig? When you killed
her?"
He wheeled around, his hands clutching out in front of him, but
they grabbed nothing. His arms closed on empty air. He felt himself
being propelled backwards and he crashed into the brick wall like
an overripe tomato and slithered to the concrete. His icepick fell
from his hand and clattered onto the ground.
There was a terrible pain where his right leg used to be. He
tried to move it, but the leg no longer responded. And there was
more pain as his left leg gave way with a snap. And then his
stomach felt as if it were being torn apart by rats; he could feel
what seemed like giant pieces of it being torn away, and he
screamed, a long, long, lingering scream that celebrated agony and
welcomed death.
And then there was a white face right in front of him and it was
leaning close to him, and it said, "You killed her with the pick,
animal, and now you're going to learn what it was like."
And then there was a ringing black starshine of pain at his left
eye where the icepick was stuck. He could not see left anymore. And
then the pain stopped and the big black man fell forward, his head
smashing onto the concrete of the alley with a dull empty thud. The
last thing he'd seen was that the white man had clean
fingernails.
Remo spat down at the body and stepped out of the alley, back
onto the sidewalk as a car came roaring down the street past him.
It was followed by two more cars.
Remo looked down the street where the Saxon Lords were involved
in a massive free-for-all, as it was suddenly illuminated by the
onrushing headlights. Coming down the block the other way were
three more automobiles.
The cars screeched to a stop and men jumped out. Remo could see
they were carrying weapons. And then he heard a familiar voice. It
was Sergeant Pleskoff.
"All right. Shoot 'em. Shoot the bastards. Shoot 'em right in
the whites of their goddam eyes. We'll show 'em. America's had
enough of this goddam violence. Kill 'em all. No survivors."
Remo was able to pick Pleskoff out. He was waving his arm over
his head in a passable imitation of Errol Flynn's passable
imitation of General Custer. He was wearing civilian clothes. So
were the other dozen men who began firing into the mob with Police
Specials and, shotguns.
Then Chiun was at Remo's side, with Tyrone in tow. Tyrone was
looking back over his shoulder as the streets began to fill up with
fallen bodies.
"Did you want him?" Chiun asked Remo.
"No. Not any more," said Remo.
Tyrone turned toward Remo, his eyes wide with fright.
"Ah doan wan' go back there."
"Why not?"
"It gettin' dangerous on de streets aroun' here," Tyrone said.
"Can ah hang out wif you?"
Remo shrugged. Down the street the orgy of bulleting was slowing
down. The screams were dying away. Few people were left standing.
Pleskoff's voice kept roaring: "Shoot 'em all. We'll straighten
this town out."
Chiun turned toward the voice also.
"I've created a goddam Wyatt Earp," Remo said.
"It is always the way when a man deals in vengeance," Chiun
said. "Always the way."
"Always the way," Remo repeated.
"Allus de way," Tyrone said.
"Shut up," Remo said.
"Shut up," Chiun said.
Back at the Plaza, Chiun fished into one of his large lacquered
trunks for a scroll of parchment and a bottle of ink and a large
quill pen.
"What are you doing?" Remo asked.
"Writing for the history of Sinanju," Chiun said.
"About what?"
"About how the Master brought wisdom to his disciple by teaching
him that vengeance is destructive."
"Be sure to write that it feels good too," Remo said.
He watched as Tyrone peered over Chiun's shoulder and then,
behind Chiun's back, looked into the open trunk.
Chiun began writing. "You must see, Remo, that it would have
done nothing to act vengefully against Tyrone. He is not
responsible. There is nothing he can do about what he is."
Tyrone at that moment was slipping out the front door of the
apartment.
"I'm glad you feel that way," Chiun," Remo said.
"Ummmm," the old man said, writing. "Why?"
"Because Tyrone just beat it with one of your diamond
rings."
The quill pen flew upwards and stuck in the plaster ceiling. The
bottle of ink flew off in another direction. Chiun dropped the the
parchment scroll and moved quickly to his feet to the trunk. He
bent forward, burying his head inside it, then stood up. His face
was pale as he turned to Remo.
"He did. He did."
"He went thataway," Remo said, pointing to the door. But before
he finished the sentence, Chiun was already out into the hall.
It was 11:30 p.m. Time to call Smith at the special 800 area
code number that was open only twice a day.
"Hello," said Smith's acid-soaked voice.
"Hi, Smitty. How's it going?"
"I presume you have a report to make," Smith said.
"Just a minute." Remo covered the mouthpiece of the telephone.
Outside the door, down the hallway near the elevator, he could hear
thumping. And groans. And somebody weeping. Remo nodded.
"Yeah," Remo said. "Well, Spesk is dead. The guy who killed Mrs.
Mueller is dead. There are at least a dozen New York City cops who
are beginning to do something about criminals. All in all, I'd say
a fair day's work."
"What about…"
"Just a minute," Remo said as the door to the suite opened. In
walked Chiun, polishing his diamond ring on the black sleeve of his
kimono, blowing on it, then polishing.
"You got it back," Remo said.
"Obviously."
"No vengeance, I hope," Remo said.
Chiun shook his head. "I suited the punishment to the crime. He
stole my diamond; I stole his ability to steal again for a long
time?'
"What'd you do?"
"I reduced his finger bones to putty. And warned him that if I
ever saw him again, I would not treat him so kindly."
"I'm glad you weren't vengeful, Little Father. Be sure to put
that in your history."
Chiun scooped up the parchment scroll and dumped it into the
lacquered chest. "I don't feel like writing anymore tonight."
"There's always tomorrow." Remo turned his attention back to the
telephone. "You were saying, Smitty?"
"I was asking. What about Spesk's two deadly weapons? Did you
find them?"
"Of course. You asked me to, didn't you?"
"Well?"
"Well what?" asked Remo.
"What are they?" Smith asked.
"You can't have them," Remo said.
"Why not?" Smith said.
"Some things just aren't for sale," Remo said. He pulled the
telephone cord from the wall and collapsed back on the couch.
Laughing.
REVISION HISTORY
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At first she thought she was back in Nazi Germany. A ringing
black starshine of pain was at her left eye where the boy had stuck
the ice pick. She could not see left anymore. She remembered the
Gestapo. But this could not be the Gestapo. The Gestapo had clean
fingernails and asked clear questions and let you know that if you
told them what they wanted, they would stop the pain.
The Gestapo wanted to know where Gerd was and she did not know
where Gerd was. She kept saying it. But these tormenters kept
saying "tawk Murican." They meant talk American.
They smelled different, these boys. You could smell them. She
had told this to Mrs. Rosenbloom at the high school auditorium
where the New York City Police Department had sent over someone for
a morning talk. It was safe sometimes in the morning.
The police, who thought they should get more money from a
near-bankrupt city, were now teaching the elderly how to get
mugged. You didn't resist, they told you. You gave up your purse.
There was a police lieutenant showing how to loosely fasten the
straps so that the mugger would not think you were trying to hold
onto your purse.
"I can smell them too," Mrs. Rosenbloom had said that
morning. But she cautioned Mrs. Mueller not to mention anything.
"They'll say that's racist and it is bad. You're not allowed to be
racist in this country."
Mrs. Mueller nodded. She did not want to be a racist because
that was a bad thing. The Nazis were that way and they were bad.
She had seen what they had done and as a good Christian she could
not support them. Nor could her husband Gerd.
They had wanted to reach Gerd. But Gerd was dead. A long time
ago, Gerd was dead. Mrs. Mueller felt a kick in her chest. The
Nazis were gone. These were blacks.
She wanted to beg the black boys not to kick her anymore. Not in
the breasts. Was that what was taught in the auditorium by the New
York City police? She tried to remember. Her hands were tied behind
her with the electric cord. No. The police did not tell you what to
do when they tied you up and put out your eye with an ice pick.
The New York City police told you how to get mugged. They never
gave old people lectures on how to get killed. Maybe if they got
more money, they would teach you how to be murdered as well as
mugged. Mrs. Mueller thought these things in a pain-crazed mind
that blended Nazi Germany and her slum apartment.
She wanted to tell the laughing black boys to kick her somewhere
else. Not in the breasts because that hurt too much. Would it be
racist to ask blacks to kick you somewhere else? She did not want
to be a racist. She saw what racism had done.
But Jews never beat her up. You never had to fear for your life
in a Jewish neighborhood. This had been a Jewish neighborhood when
she and Gerd had moved in. They were German and thought there might
be some trouble because of what the Nazis had done. There was no
trouble. There was no trouble with the Irish who had lived two
blocks over. Or the Poles. Or the Italians on the other side of the
Grand Concourse.
But then a law was passed. And. the law said it was bad to keep
people out of neighborhoods. Black people. And everyone was to be
taught to do the right thing. This was America. Everyone had to do
the right thing.
A woman had come to talk. She taught at a university. She had
told everyone in the community center about George Washington
Carver, a black man, and all the other nice black people and how
good blacks were and how bad people who hated them were and it was
a bad thing to hate blacks. Gerd, who was alive then, had
translated for Mrs. Mueller. He was so smart. He knew so much and
learned so quickly. He had been an engineer. If he were alive,
maybe he could make the boys understand not to kick her in the
breasts but somewhere else. No, they didn't want anything. They
were just having fun with her old body.
The woman who had told everyone how nice blacks were, was the
woman from the university. It was a progressive and good thing to
welcome blacks to the neighborhood. The whites and blacks were all
going to be culturally enriched. When the blacks started moving in
and you could not walk the streets at night anymore, the people
from the university who said how nice it was to live with blacks
did not come around. At first, they did not come around at night.
Then when more blacks moved in, they did not come around during the
day either. They went off somewhere else, Gerd said, to tell other
people how nice it was to live with blacks.
They never came to Walton Avenue anymore to tell people how
culturally enriched they were to have blacks around them because
now it was almost all blacks.
The ones who had money could run. But Gerd did not have enough
money anymore and they did not want to bother their daughter who
had come to them late in life. Born in America she was. So pretty.
She could speak English so well. Maybe she could ask these boys not
to kick her mother in the breasts where it hurt so much. Would that
be racist? She didn't want to be. a racist. That was a bad thing.
But she didn't want to be kicked in the breasts.
She wished the black policeman were here. He would make them
stop. There were nice blacks. But you were not allowed to say there
were nice blacks, because that would mean there were blacks who
weren't nice. And that would be racist.
It used to be such a nice neighborhood where you could walk out
in the street. Now you trembled when you had to walk past a window
that was not boarded up.
She felt the warm blood of her ripped breast come down her belly
and she tasted the blood come up her throat and she moaned and
heard them laugh at her frail struggle to live. She felt as if her
back had nails in it. Time had passed. There was no one kicking or
stabbing her anymore and that meant they might be gone.
But what did they want? They must have gotten it but there was
nothing left in the apartment to steal. There wasn't even a
television set any more. You couldn't keep a television set because
they would find out and steal it. No white person in the
neighborhood-there were three left-had televisions anymore.
Maybe they had stolen Gerd's silly machine that he had brought
with him from Germany. Maybe that was it. What else could they have
come for? They said Heil Hitler a lot, these young black boys. They must have
thought she was Jewish. Blacks liked to say that to Jews. Mrs.
Rosenbloom said once they would come to Jewish funerals to say that
and laugh.
They did not know Hitler. Hitler thought blacks were monkeys.
Didn't they read? He did not think they were dangerous either, just
funny monkeys.
When she was young it was her responsibility to learn how to
read in school. Now that she was old, the smart people from the
university who did not come around anymore said she was still
responsible for other people reading. Somehow she was responsible
because they could not learn to read or write.
But she could understand that. She had trouble herself learning
English and Gerd always had to translate for her. Maybe these
blacks spoke another language well and, like she did, they just had
trouble with English. Did they speak African?
She could not feel her arms anymore and the left side of her
head was numbed from pain in a faraway place and she knew she was
dying, tied here to her bed. She could not see from her right eye
whether it was dark yet because you had to board up your windows if
you wanted to walk from room to room. Otherwise you had to crawl
below the level of the windowsill so they would not see you. Mrs.
Rosenbloom could remember when old people would sit in the sun in
the park and young boys and girls would actually help you across a
street.
But Mrs. Rosenbloom had gone in the spring. She had said she
wanted to smell a fresh flower at noon again and she had remembered
that before blacks had moved into the neighborhood there were
daffodils in St. James Park in the spring and she was going to try
to smell one in the bright sun. She knew they had to be up by now.
So she had phoned and said goodbye in case something should happen.
Gerd had warned her not to go but she had said she was tired of
living without sunshine and even though she had the misfortune to
live in a now dangerous place, she wanted to walk in the sun again.
It was not her fault her skin was white and she was too poor to
move away from blacks and she was too old to run or to fight them
off. Maybe if she just walked out on the street, as if she had a
right to, maybe she could get to the park and back.
And so Mrs. Rosenbloom had headed for the park that noon and the
next day when Gerd had phoned one of the other whites who could not
leave the neighborhood, he found out that Mrs. Rosenbloom had not
contacted them either. Her phone did not answer.
Gerd reasoned that since there was nothing on the radio-he had a
small silent earphone put in because that way you could keep a
radio because they wouldn't know you had one and come to steal
it-then Mrs. Rosenbloom was dead cleanly. The radio and the
newspapers only had stories when they poured gasoline over you and
burned you alive as in Boston or when whites committed suicide
because the fear of blacks was too great as in Manhattan. The
normal everyday deaths were not on the radio, so perhaps Mrs.
Rosenbloom had died quickly and easily.
And later they saw someone who had known someone who had seen
her body picked up, so she was dead definitely. It was not a wise
move to go to the park. She should have waited for the New York
City police to give a lecture on how to be mugged in the park, or
gone in the very early hours when the only blacks out were the ones
who worked and they left you alone. But she had wanted to smell the
flowers under the noonday sun. There were worse things to die for
than to smell a daffodil in the full sun. Mrs. Rosenbloom must have
died cleanly. That was good in a neighborhood like this.
Was it a month ago that Mrs. Rosenbloom died? Two months? No, it
was last year. When did Gerd die? When did they leave Germany? This
was not Germany. No. This was America. And she was dying. It felt
all right as if this was the way it should be. She wanted to die to
go into that night where her husband waited. She knew she would see
him again and was glad he had not lived to observe how horribly she
was dying because she could never explain to him that it was all
right. That it looked worse than it was and already, Gerd darling,
she could feel the senses of the body leave, there being no more
need for pain when the body dies.
And she gave God her last thanks on earth and felt good leaving
her body.
When the life went from the frail old whitened form and the heat
went and the blood stopped moving in the veins, the ninety-two
pounds of human flesh that had been Mrs. Gerd Mueller did what
flesh always did unless frozen or dried. It decomposed. And it
smelled so frightfully that the New York City police finally came
to collect it. Two large men with unholstered guns provided
protection for the coroner's office. They made comments about the
neighborhood and when the body was leaving on the stretcher, a gang
of black youths cornered one of the policemen who fired off a shot,
catching underarm flesh from one of the young men. The gang fled
and the body went to the morgue untroubled and the detectives filed
their reports and went home to the suburbs where they could raise
their families sanely, in relative safety.
A boozy old reporter who had once worked for the many newspapers
in New York City and now worked for a television station leafed
through the homicide reports. It was just another old white person
killed by blacks and he put it back in a pile of such reports. It
offended him that human life would be so insignificant now, as if
the city were at war. And it reminded him of another time, when
deaths were also unimportant. It was thirty years before when
blacks shooting other blacks just was not news.
He put down the reports and answered a call from the newsroom. A
detective in the Bronx, trapped by a gang of black youths, had
fired and wounded one. The Black Ministry Council of Greater New
York was calling the shooting "barbarism." They were picketing the
house of the policeman's lawyer, demanding an end to legal defense
of policemen accused of shooting blacks.
The reporter was told by his assignment editor to link up with a
camera and do an interview in front of the lawyer's home.
The pickets were lounging in cars when the reporter got there.
He had to wait for his cameraman. When the camera arrived, it was
as if everyone had suddenly been injected with adrenalin. Out of
cars and off car hoods they came. They joined the circle and the
cameraman got precisely the right angle to make it look as if an
entire community was marching in front of this lawyer's house.
They chanted and marched. The reporter put the microphone in
front of a very black man with a very white collar under his rutted
face.
The reverend talked of maniacal policemen shooting down innocent
black youths, the victims of "the worst racism ever seen by
man."
The black man identified himself as Reverend Josiah Wadson,
chairman of the Black Ministry Council, co-chairman of the World
Church Group, executive director of Affirmative Housing Action I,
soon to be followed by Affirmative Housing Action II. His voice
rolled like mountains in Tennessee. He invoked the righteous wrath
of the Almighty. He bemoaned white barbarism.
The reporter wished fervently that Reverend Wadson, a massive
man, would talk upward instead of downward at the reporter, and, if
possible, hold his breath.
Reverend Wadson reeked gin and his breath could have peeled
epoxy off a battleship turret. The reporter tried to hide how
painful it was to stand near Reverend Wadson's breath.
Wadson called for an end to police brutality against blacks. He
talked of oppression. The reporter tried to hold his own breath so
he would not have to inhale so close to the reverend.
He also had to hide the bulge under the reverend's black mohair
jacket. The reverend packed a pearl-handled revolver and the
assignment editor would never allow this film to appear showing
that the reverend went around armed. The assignment editor didn't
want to appear racist; therefore all blacks had to appear good. And
unarmed, of course.
When the film appeared and was grabbed up by the network, there
was the sonorous weeping voice of the reverend describing the awful
plight of black youths and there were the outraged citizenry behind
him, marching in protest, and there was the reporter hunched up,
blocking the view of the reverend's gun, and the reporter was
turning away every so often and when his face came back close to
the reverend's, there were tears in his eyes. It looked as if the
story the reverend told was so sad that the veteran reporter could
not refrain from sobbing on camera.
When it was showed overseas, this was just what the foreign news
announcers said. So terrible was the police oppression of black
youths that a hardened white reporter broke down in tears. This
little news clip became famous within days.
Professors sat around discussing police brutality, which became
oppression, which became naturally enough "New York City
police-planned genocide."
When someone brought up the incredibly high crime rate of
blacks, the learned response was what could one expect after such
attempted police genocide? It was asked on tests in universities.
And those who did not know this answer failed.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Gerd Mueller was buried with a closed casket.
The funeral home had attempted to resurrect the left side of the
old face but the wax rebuilding where her eye had been proved too
difficult with old flesh. They couldn't turn in the folds in wax to
build up her old cheek. It looked too young for the immigrant from
Germany.
So they shielded everyone's eyes from what the muggers had done,
and when the casket was brought from the church to Our Lady of
Angels cemetery there was a large cortege. And this surprised Mrs.
Mueller's daughter because she did not know that her parents knew
that many people, especially men in their thirties and forties. And
a few of them who asked questions.
No, her parents had left nothing. Oh, there was a safe deposit
box that held only a few bonds. Trinkets. That's what one mourner
said he was looking for. Trinkets. Old German trinkets.
And the daughter thought this was shocking. But what was really
shocking in today's world? So a buyer wanted to do business at
graveside? Maybe that was his thing? And she longed for the days
when some things had been shocking, because her heart hurt fiercely
and she thought of the old woman dying alone and how frightening it
had been to visit her parents after the neighborhood had
changed.
"No bloody trinkets, damn you," she yelled.
And that day, wreckers began taking down the apartment building
where the Muellers had lived.
They moved in with an armed escort of federal marshals, each
over six feet tall and karate trained. They sealed off the street.
They built armor-plated barricades. They carried truncheons. The
old walk-up building was taken down with surgical precision brick
by brick, and the debris left the area, not by truckloads, but in
large white trunks. With padlocks.
CHAPTER TWO
His name was Remo and he was taking the elevator up from
beneath. He smelled the heavy buildup of engine fumes embedded in
the caked grease, and felt long cables tremble ever so slightly
when the elevator came to a floor and that fifteen-story ripple
started with a halt of the elevator and shimmied down to the
basement and then back up past the fifteenth floor to the
penthouse, five stories overhead.
He had a good forearm hold on a bolt that he kept just above his
lean frame. People who held onto things for their lives usually
tired quickly, precisely because they held on for their lives. Fear
gave speed and power to the muscles, not endurance.
If one wanted to hold onto something, one became a solid part of
it, extended himself out through the extruding bolt, so that the
grip did not strangle but extended from what it was joined to. As
he had been taught, he let the hand do the attaching lightly and
forgot about it. So that when the elevator started again, his body
swayed easily from the hand that was the pivot joint and up he
went.
It was his right hand and he could hear people walking just
above his right ear.
He had been there since early morning and when the elevator
stopped at the penthouse floor, he knew he would not be there much
longer. At the penthouse floor, different things happened. Remo
heard locks snap, twenty stories down, twenty locks, each for an
elevator door. He had been told about this. He heard the grunt of
muscled men who forced themselves up through strain. They checked
the top of the elevator. He had been told about that also. The
bodyguards always checked the roof of the elevator because it was
known men could hide there.
The roof was sealed with reinforced steel plating and so was the
floor. This prevented anyone from burrowing down or up into the
elevator.
The elevator to the street was the only vulnerable point in the
penthouse complex of the South Korean consul in Los Angeles. The
rest was a fortress. Remo had been told about that.
And when he was asked how he would penetrate this complex, he
answered that he was paid for his services, not his wisdom. Which
was true. But even truer was that Remo did not really know how he
was going to penetrate this complex at the time and he didn't feel
like thinking about it, and most of all, he hadn't felt like
carrying on the conversation. So he threw out some wiseacre
comment, the kind he himself had endured for more than a decade,
and on the morning that upstairs wanted the job done, he sauntered
over to the building with the elegant penthouse fortress and made
his first move without even thinking.
One did not have to scheme too much anymore. At first, the
defenses he had run into-where people locked gates or lived high up
or surrounded themselves with bodyguards-had presented problems.
And it was very exciting at first to solve them.
This morning, for some reason, he had been thinking about
daffodils. He had seen some earlier in the spring and this morning
he was thinking about these yellow flowers and how now when he
smelled them, it was entirely different from the way he had smelled
them before, before he had become this other person he now was. In
the old days, there might have been a sweet odor. But now when he
smelled a flower, he could inhale its movements. It was a symphony
of pollen climaxing in his nostrils. It was a chorus and a shout of
life. To be Sinanju, to be a learner and a knower of the
disciplines of the small North Korean village on the West Korean
Bay, was to know life more fully. A second now had more life in it
than an hour had had before.
Of course, sometimes Remo didn't want more life. He would have
preferred less of it.
So, thinking of these yellow flowers, he entered the new white
brick-and-aluminum building with the full story-high windows and
the elegant marble entranceway and the waterfall going over the
plastic flowers in the Iobby, took the elevator up to the tenth
floor. There, he fiddled around with the stop and emergency buttons
until he got the tenth floor about waist-high, then slid under the
elevator, found a bolt on the undercarriage, locked his right hand
to it, until amid screaming from many floors, someone got the
elevator started again. And there he waited and swung until later
when the elevator went all the way up to the penthouse.
Not much thinking. He had been told so early by his teacher, by
Chiun, current Master of Sinanju, that people always show you the
best way to attack them.
If they have a weakness, they surround it with ditches or armor
plating or bodyguards. So Remo, upon hearing of all the protection
around the elevator when he got the assignment, went right to the
elevator, thinking of daffodils because there wasn't really much
else to think about.
And now, the person he wanted walked into the elevator, asking
questions in Korean. Were all the locks on so the trip down could
not be interrupted? They were, Colonel. Was the top hatch secure?
Yes, Colonel. The roof entrance? Yes, Colonel. The floor? Yes,
Colonel. And, Colonel, you look so splendid in your gray suit.
Most American, no?
Yes, like a businessman.
It is all business.
Yes, Colonel.
And the twenty stories of cable moved.
And the elevator lowered.
And Remo rocked his body. The elevator descending in a long slow
drop of twenty stories rocked with the light human form on its
undercarriage, like a bell with a swinging clapper. It picked up
the back-and-forth of the rhythm-perfect sinew machine on its
undercarriage, and at the twelfth floor, the elevator began banging
its guide rails, spitting sparks and shivering the inside
panels.
The occupants pressed emergency stop. The coils snapped to a
quivering stillness. Remo took three slow swings, and on the third,
hand-ladled his body up into the floor space at the door
opening above him, and then, getting his left hand up into the
rubber of the inner elevator door, gave the whole sliding mechanism
a good bang and a healthy shove with his left side.
The door opened like a champagne cork popping into an aluminum
cradle. And Remo was inside the elevator.
"Hello," he said in his most polite Korean but he knew, even
with his heavy American accent, the tones of the greeting were
sodden with the heaviness of the northern Korean town of Sinanju,
the only accent Remo had ever learned.
The short Korean with the lean hard face had a .38 Police
Special out of the shoulder holster under his blue jacket with good
speed. It told Remo that the man in the gray was definitely the
colonel and the one he wanted. Koreans, when they had bodyguards,
thought it beneath their dignity to fight. And this was somewhat
strange because the colonel was supposed to be one of the most
deadly men in the south of that country with, both hand and knife,
and, if he wished, the gun too.
"I don't suppose that would pose any problem to you?" Remo had
been asked when given the assignment and told of the colonel's
skills.
"Nah," Remo had said.
"He has the renowned black belt in karate," Remo had been
told.
"Yeah, hmmm," Remo had said, not all that interested.
"Would you like to see his moves in action then?"
"Nah," Remo had said.
"He is perhaps one of the most feared men in Asia. He is very
close to South Korea's president. We need him alive. He's a fanatic
so that may not be easy." This warning had come from Dr. Harold W.
Smith, director of Folcroft Sanitarium, the cover for a special
organization which worked outside the laws of the land, in the hope
that the rest of the system could work inside. Remo was its silent
enforcement arm and Chiun the teacher who had given him more than
American money could buy.
For while the assassins of Sinanju had rented out their services
to emperors and kings and pharaohs even before the Western world
started keeping track of years by numbers, they never sold how they
did it.
So when the organization paid for Chiun to teach Remo to kill,
they got their money's worth. But when Chinn taught Remo to breathe
and live and think and explore the inner universe of his own body,
creating a creature that used its brain cells and body organs at
least eight times more effectively than normal man, Chiun gave the
secret organization more than it had bargained for. A new man,
totally different from the one sent to him for training.
And Remo could not explain it. He could not tell Smith what the
teachings of Sinanju had given him. It would be like trying to
explain soft to someone who could not feel or red to a person born
blind. You did not explain Sinanju and what the masters knew and
taught to someone who was going to ask you someday if you might
have trouble with a karate expert. Does the winter have trouble
with the snow? Someone who thought of Remo's watching movies of
another fighter in action could not possibly understand Sinanju.
Ever.
But Smith had insisted upon showing the movies of the colonel in
action. It was taken by the CIA which had worked heavily with the
colonel at one time. Now there was a strain between Korea and
America and the colonel was one of the larger parts of it. They
could not get to him because he had become familiar with American
weapons. It was like a teacher trying to trick an old pupil who had
grown too wise. It was just the sort of mission Smith thought the
organization would be good for.
"That's nice," Remo had said and whistled an off-key tune in the
hotel room in Denver where he had gotten the assignment for the
Korean colonel. Smith, undeterred by Remo's indifference that had
blossomed into yawning boredom, ran the movies of the colonel in
action. The colonel broke a few boards, kicked a few younger men in
the jaw, and danced around a bit. The movie was black and
white.
"Whew," Smith had said. He arched an eyebrow, a very severe
emotion on that normally frosted face.
"Yeah, wha'?" asked Remo. What was Smith talking about?
"I couldn't see his hands," said Smith.
"Not that fast," said Remo. After awhile you had to listen and
observe people to find out where their limits were, because
sometimes you just couldn't believe how dead they were to life.
Smith really believed the man was fast and dangerous, Remo
realized.
"His hands were a blur," said Smith.
"Nah," said Remo. "Stop the frames where he's flailing around.
They're sharp."
"You mean to tell me you can see individual frames in a movie?"
asked Smith. "That's impossible."
"As a matter of fact, unless I remind myself to relax, that's
all I see. It's all a bunch of stills."
"You couldn't see his hands in still frames," Smith
challenged.
"All right, fine," said Remo pleasantly. If Smith wanted to
believe that, fine. Was there anything else that Smith wanted.
Smith dimmed the lights in the hotel room and put the small
movie projector into reverse. The lights flickered into a blur, as
the camera whirred and then stopped. There was the still frame. And
there was the colonel's striking hand, frozen and clear. Smith
moved the camera still by still to another frame, then another. The
hand was picture-sharp throughout, not too fast for the film at
all.
"But it looked so fast," said Smith. So regularly and
consistently had he acknowledged that Remo had changed that he was
not aware of how much had truly happened, how much Remo had really
changed.
And Remo told him more that he thought had changed. "When I
first started doing all this for you, I used to respect what we
were doing. No more," Remo had said, and he had left that hotel
room with instructions on what America wanted from the Korean
colonel. He could have had a few hours' briefing on how the CIA and
the FBI had failed to reach the man, what his defenses were, but
all he wanted was a general description of the building so he could
find it. And, of course, Smitty had mentioned the protection on the
elevator.
So Remo watched the .38 Special come around toward him from the
man in the blue suit and watched the man in the gray suit back away
to let his servant do the job and that was good enough
identification for him.
He caught the gun wrist with a forefinger, snapping it through
the bone. He did this in such perfect consonance with the
bodyguard's own rhythm, it appeared as if the man had taken the gun
out of the holster only to throw it away. The hand didn't stop
moving and the gun flew into the open crack between floors and down
into silence. As Remo cupped his hand behind the head, he gave his
fingers and palms an extra little twist. This was not a stroke he
had been taught. He wanted to wipe away the grease from the
elevator's undercarriage. He did that as he brought the guard's
head down into his rising knee-one, pushing through with a tidy
snap at the end, right behind the man's head toward the open wall;
two, caught the returning body; and three, put it to rest quietly
and forever on its back.
"Hi, sweetheart," said Remo to the colonel in English. "I need
your cooperation." The colonel threw his briefcase at Remo's head.
It hit a wall and snapped open, spilling packages of green American
money. Apparently the colonel was heading to Washington to either
rent or buy an American congressman.
The colonel assumed a dragon position with arching hands like
claws, and elbows forward. The colonel hissed. Remo wondered
whether there were sales on American congressmen like any other
commodity. Did one get the votes of a dozen congressmen cheaper
than buying twelve separately? Was a vote ever reduced to a
bargain? What was the price of a Supreme Court justice? And what
about cabinet members? Could someone purchase something in a nice
secretary of commerce?
The colonel kicked.
Or perhaps rent a director of the FBI? Could a buyer be
interested in a vice president? They were really very cheap. The
last one sold out for cash in an envelope, bringing disgrace to a
White House already full of it. Imagine a vice president selling
out for only fifty thousand dollars in cash payoff. That brought
shame to his office and his country. For fifty thousand dollars,
one should get no more than a vice president of Greece. It was a
disgrace to be able to buy an American vice president for so
little.
Remo caught the kick.
But what could one expect from anyone who would write a book for
money?
The colonel threw a kick with the other leg, which Remo caught,
and returned the foot to the floor. The colonel sent a stroke that
could crush brick at Remo's skull. Remo caught the hand and put it
back at the colonel's side. Then came the other hand, and back it
went too.
Perhaps, thought Remo, American Express or Master Charge might
simply credit an account, or every freshman congressman would get
one of the stickers of those credit agencies and attach it to his
office door and when someone wanted to bribe him, he wouldn't have
to carry cash out into the dangerous Washington streets, but just
present his credit card and the congressman could take out one of
those machines he would get when he swore to uphold the
Constitution as he took office, and run through the briber's credit
card and at the end of every month get his bribe through his own
bank. Just bribing a congressman with cold cash was demeaning.
The colonel bared his teeth and lunged, trying to get a bite at
Remo's throat.
Possibly, thought Remo, there might even be a stock market for
Washington politicians, with bids on farm votes and things like
that. Senators up three points, congressmen down an eighth, the
president steady. And while his thoughts were sarcastic, Remo was
greatly sad. Because he did not want his government to be that, he
did not want that stain of corruption, he not only wanted to
believe in his country and his government, he wanted the facts to
justify it also. It was not even good enough the majority were
honest, he wanted all of them that way. And he hated the money
strewn around this elevator floor as he throttled the Korean
colonel. For that money was destined for American politicians and
it meant that there were hands out.
So this little thing with the colonel was a bit of a pleasure
and he leveled the man and put him on his back and very slowly he
said-so that the man would be sure this was not just a windy
threat-"Colonel, I am about to puree your face in my hands. You can
save your face and your lungs which can be snapped out of your body
and your gonads and various other parts of your body that you will
miss tremendously. You can do this by cooperating. I am a busy man,
Colonel."
And in Korean, the colonel gasped: "Who are you?"
"Would you believe a Freudian analyst?" asked Remo, pressing his
right thumb under the colonel's cheekbone and pressing down so that
the left eye of the colonel strained at its nerve endings.
"Aieee," screamed the colonel.
"And so, please dig deep into your subconscious and come up with
your payroll of American politicians. All right, sweetie?" said
Remo. "Aieeee," screamed the colonel, because it felt as if
the eye were coming out of its socket.
"Very good," said Remo and released pressure. The eye eased back
into the socket, suddenly filled with a roadmap of red veins as the
burst capillaries flooded the eyeball. The red lines in the left
eye would disappear in two days. And by the time they did, the
colonel would be a defector in the custody of the FBI. He would be
called a key witness and newsmen would say he defected because he
was afraid of returning to South Korea which of course made no
sense for he was one of the closest friends of the South Korean
president. And the colonel would name names and how much each one
got.
And Remo hoped they would go to jail. It offended him that the
grease-slicked head with the little rat grin of a former vice
president went pandering around the world when he should have been
behind bars doing time like the common thief he was.
So he told the colonel very clearly and very slowly in English
and in Korean that all the names would be named and that there was
nothing that could protect the colonel.
"Because, Colonel, I have greater access to your nerves and to
your pain than you do," said Remo, as the elevator closed its door
and descended toward the basement.
"Who are you?" asked the colonel, whose English occasionally
lost verbs but who pronounced any figure above ten thousand dollars
flawlessly. "You work for me. Fifty thousand dollars."
"You're not talking to a vice president of the United States,"
said Remo angrily.
"A hundred thousand."
"Nobody voted me into office, buddy," said Remo.
"Two hundred thousand. I make you rich. You work for me."
"You don't understand. I am not the director of the FBI. I've
never sworn to uphold the Constitution and carry out any duties on
behalf of the American people. I'm not for sale," said Remo and
took one of the bundles of new one hundred dollar bills and put the
edge of it into the colonel's mouth,
"Eat. It's good for you. Eat. Please. Just a nibble. Try it,
you'll like it," said Remo, and as the colonel tried to chew at the
corner of the paper, Remo told him who he was.
"I'm the spirit of America, Colonel. The man who walked on the
moon, who invented the light bulb, who grows more food on his land
because of his own sweat than any other. If I have a fault, it's
that I've been too kind to too many people too often. Eat."
When the elevator reached the lower security area and the door
opened, the guards at the door saw only their commander leaning
numbly against the back o£ the elevator and his bodyguard
stretched dead upon the floor, his right hand loose jelly in
unpunctured skin. Money was strewn around the elevator floor and
for some strange reason, the colonel was chewing on the end of a
packet of bills.
"Take me to the FBI immediately," he said in a daze.
When they were gone, Remo slid from the undercarriage where he
had waited before and squirmed his way through a breadbox-sized
hole, out into the garage.
He heard people yelling all the way up the twenty stories of the
building at the closed and locked elevator doors. He smiled at a
startled guard.
By noon, Remo was back at the trim white yacht in San Francisco
Bay that he had left early that morning.
He moved quietly because he did not wish to disturb what was
happening in the cabin. It sounded like iron pans being clanged
against a blackboard. Remo waited outside and noticed that the
sounds went on uninterrupted. It was Chiun reciting his poetry and
usually he would stop to give himself reviews, the style of which
he had read in American papers.
He would normally tell himself: "Superb with the power of
genius… iridescent magnificence, denning the yery role
itself." The role Chiun was denning at this moment was that of the
wounded flower in his 3,008-page poem that had already been
rejected by twenty-two American publishers. An insensitive bee had
plucked his pollen too rapidly.
The poem was in old Korean, the Korean dialect uninfluenced by
Japanese. Remo peered into the cabin and saw the crimson and gold
kimono of Chiun's poetry robe. He saw the long fingernails
gracefully glide into the positions of a flower and then the
flutter of a bee. He saw the wisps of white hair and the faint long
delicate beard and realized that the deadliest assassin in the
world had a visitor.
He looked farther around through the little porthole and he saw
the shined black cordovan shoes on the carpet. The visitor was Dr.
Harold W. Smith.
Remo let the director sit through another half hour of the Ung
poetry which Smith could not possibly understand because he did not
know Korean. But such was Smith's great ability to deal with
government figures that he could sit appearing interested hours on
end, listening to what had to be to him just discordant sounds. He
could have been hearing a record of dishes being washed and gotten
as much real information from it. But here he was, eyebrows curled,
thin lips pursed, head cocked ever so slightly, as if he were
taking notes at a college lecture.
At a pause, Remo entered amid Smith's applause,
"Did you get the significance of that, Smitty?" asked Remo.
"I'm not familiar with the form," said Smith, "but what I do
understand, I appreciate."
"What do you understand?" Remo asked.
"The hand movements. They were a flower, I assume," said
Smith.
Chiun nodded. "Yes. Some are uncultured dregs and others have
sensitivity. Perhaps it is my special burden, that I am condemned
to teach those who least appreciate it. That I, to earn tribute for
my village as my ancestors before me, must squander the wisdom of
Sinanju before the ingrate who has just arrived. Diamonds in the
mud. A pale piece of a pig's ear, here before you."
"Barf," said Remo, in the manner of the Americans.
"Ah, you see here the gratitude," said Chiun to Smith with a
satisfied nod.
Smith leaned forward. His lemony face was even more somber than
usual.
"I imagine you are wondering why I would appear here before both
of you, so close to a spot where I assume you have just completed
an assignment. I have never done this before, as you both know. We
go to great pains to keep ourselves and our operations from public
knowledge. Public knowledge of our operations would ruin us. It
would be an admission that our government operates illegally."
"Oh, Emperor Smith," said Chiun. "He who holds the strongest
sword makes his slightest whim legal."
Smith nodded in respect. This always amused Remo, when Smith
tried to explain democracy to Chiun. For the House of Sinanju had
served only kings and despots, the only ones with enough money to
pay tribute to the assassins of Sinanju for the support of the
village on rocky Korean coast. It did not occur to Remo at that
moment that Smith was about to try to buy Chiun away from Remo,
with fortunes far beyond those of petty kings and pharaohs.
"So I must be aboveboard in this," said Smith. "I have
found you more and more difficult to deal with, Remo. Incredibly
difficult."
Chiun smiled and his lined, aged face moved up and down in a
nod. He noted that lo these many years he had endured Remo's lack
of respect in gentle silence, not letting the world know what it
was to give the great treasure of the knowledge of Sinanju to one
who was so unworthy. Chiun compared, himself, in his high squeaky
voice, to the beautiful flower that his poem was about, how it was
stepped on, to spring back uncomplaining with its beauty for the
entire world.
"Good," said Smith. "I'd hoped you'd feel that way. I really
did."
"I really don't give a ding dong," Remo said.
"In front of Emperor Smith, you say those things to a Master of
Sinanju?" said Chiun. Gloom shrouded the parchment face and the
Master of Sinanju lowered himself to the floor of the cabin, a
delicate head rising up from a mushroom of crimson and gold robe.
Underneath that kimono, Remo knew the long fingernails were woven
together and the legs were crossed.
"All right," said Smith. "Gracious Master of Sinanju, you have
created a marvel in Remo. You, as I, find it difficult to deal with
him. I am prepared to offer you now ten times the tribute we ship
to your village, if you will train others."
Chiun nodded and smiled the thin calm acceptance of a flat warm
lake in summer, waiting for the night to chill. This was due the
House of Sinanju, Chiun said. And more was due.
"I will increase the tribute. Twenty times what we now pay,"
Smith said.
"Let me tell you something, Little Father," Remo said to Chiun.
"The cost of the American submarine that delivers the gold to your
village is more than the gold itself. He's not giving you that
much."
"Fifty times the tribute," Smith said,
"See. See my worth," Chiun said to Remo. "What are you paid,
white thing? Even your own whites offer me tribute tenfold.
Twentyfold. A hundredfold. And you? Who offers you anything?"
"All right," said Smith who thought his last offer had been a
fifty-times increase. "A hundredfold increase o£
eighteen-karat gold. That sort of gold is…"
"He knows, he knows," said Remo. "Give him a diamond and he can
tell a flaw by holding it. He's a frigging jewelry store. He knows
half the big stones in the world by heart. Telling Chiun about gold
is like explaining the mass to the Pope."
"To support my poor village, I have become familiar to a degree
with the value of things," Chiun said modestly.
"Ask him what a blue-white diamond, two karat flawless, sells
for in Antwerp," said Remo to Smith. "Go ahead. Ask him."
"On behalf of the organization and the American people it
serves, we are grateful to you, Chiun, Master of Sinanju. And you,
Remo, you will receive a large stipend every year for the rest of
your life. You will remain in retirement. You may die in bed of old
age, knowing you have served your country well."
"I don't believe you," said Remo. "I believe I'll get the first
check and maybe the second and then one day I'll open the door and
the steps will blow up in my face. That's what I believe."
Remo loomed over Smith and let his left hand float under Smith's
chin so Smith would realize Remo was willing to kill with that hand
right now. He wanted his body presence to dominate Smith. But the
stern man was not about to be dominated by a threat. His voice did
not waver as he repeated the offer to the man who had taken the
organization so far by himself. In Remo, the organization had the
ultimate killer arm, the human being maximized to its highest
potential. How Chiun had gotten this from Remo, Smith did not know.
But if he could do it with one, he could do with others.
"I'll tell you what I'm offering, Smitty," Remo said. "I'm
leaving. And if you don't try to kill me, I won't kill you. But if
by chance someone within five feet of me is poisoned or a taxi runs
out of control on a street that I'm walking on or if a random shot
is fired somewhere near me during a holdup, I am going to tell the
world about an organization called CURE, that tried to make
government work outside the Constitution. And how nothing got
better and everything got worse, except a few bodies here and there
got lost. Somewhere. I don't know where. And then I'm going to
squeeze your lemon lips into your lemon heart and we'll be even. So
goodbye."
"I'm sorry you feel that way, Remo. I've known you felt that way
for some time. When did it all start? If you don't mind my
asking."
"When people couldn't walk the frigging streets and I'm running
around after some secret somewhere. The country isn't working. A
man puts in forty hours a week to hear some son of a bitch tell him
he's got no right to eat meat, but he's got to take the food off
his table and give it to people who hang around all day and call
him names. Enough. And that son of a bitch who tells him that,
chances are, is on some public payroll somewhere making a thousand
dollars a week saying how rotten this country is. No more."
"All right," said Smith sadly. "Thank you for what you have
done."
"You're welcome," said Remo, without any kind feeling in it. He
removed himself from over Smith and when he looked back he saw
perspiration glint in the noonday sun off Smith's pale brow. Good,
Remo thought. Smith had tasted fear. He had just been too proud to
show it.
"And now for you, Master of Sinanju," Smith said.
Chiun nodded and spoke: "We accept your gracious offer but we
have unfortunately fallen into an economic peculiarity and this
distresses us so much. While we would be most happy to train
hundreds, thousands, we cannot afford to. We have put more than a
decade of work into this," said Chiun, nodding to Remo, "and we
must protect that investment, worthless as it may seem to
anyone."
"Five hundred times what your village gets now," Smith said.
"And that probably means two submarines to deliver it."
"You can make it a million times more," said Remo. "He's not
going to train your men. He might waltz a few people around, but
he's not giving them Sinanju."
"Correct," said Chiun, elated. "I will never teach another white
man Sinanju because of the disgusting ingratitude of this one.
Therefore, no. I will stay with this ingrate."
"But you can be free of him and richer," Smith said. "I know of
the House of Sinanju, You have done business for centuries."
"Centuries upon centuries," corrected Chiun.
"And this is more money," Smith said.
"He's not leaving me," said Remo. "I'm the best he's ever had.
Better than Koreans he's had. If he could have found a decent
Korean to take his place someday, he never would have gone to work
for you."
"Is that true?" Smith asked.
"Nothing a white man says is true, except of course your
gloriousness, oh Emperor."
"It's true," Remo said. "Besides he's not leaving me. He likes
me." "Hah," said Chiun imperiously. "I stay to protect my
investment in that unworthy white skin. That is why the Master of
Sinanju stays."
Smith stared at his briefcase. Remo had never seen the human
computer so thoughtful. Finally he looked up with a small
tight-lipped smile.
"I guess we're stuck with each other, Remo," he said.
"Maybe," said Remo.
"You're the only one who can do what's got to be done," Smith
said.
"I'll listen but I'm not promising," Remo said.
"It's all sort of sticky. We're not sure what we're looking
for."
"So what else is new?" Remo asked.
Smith nodded glumly. "About a week ago, an old lady living in a
poor neighborhood was tortured to death." It happened in the Bronx,
and now agents from many nations were looking for an object or
device that old woman must have had. The device had been brought to
this country by her husband, a German refugee, who had died shortly
before she did.
The sun lowered red over the Pacific ocean and still Smith
talked. When he stopped, the stars were out.
And Remo said he would do the job, if he felt like it in the
morning.
Smith nodded again, as he rose to his feet.
"Goodbye, Remo. Good luck," he said.
"Luck. You don't understand luck," Remo said contemptuously.
"And America bids respect and honor to the awesome magnificence
of the Master of Sinanju," Smith said to Chiun.
''Of course," said Chiun.
CHAPTER THREE
Colonel Speskaya believed there was no problem that did not have
a rational solution. He believed wars were started by people who
really lacked information. With enough information properly
organized, any fool could see who would win which war and when.
Colonel Speskaya was twenty-four and ordinarily would not have
received such an august rank so young in the NKVD, the Russian
secret police, except that everything he did worked out so
well.
He knew more than any man the basic difference between the NKVD
and the American CIA. The CIA had more money and fell on its face
publicly. The NKVD had less money and fouled up in private.
Speskaya knew that in a well-run organization there should be no
such thing as a twenty-four-year-old colonel in peacetime, even
though for the NKVD no time was peacetime. He also knew he was
going to be a general soon. Still, America was stupid also and when
he was called into the American section he felt no great fear.
There was undoubtedly a problem that no one wanted to take
responsibility for. When he saw the field marshal's epaulettes on
the man briefing him, he knew it was a big problem.
In ten minutes, he had it just about solved.
"Your problem is that you know something big is happening in
America but you're not sure what and you don't want to make any
great commitment until you know, correct? You are embarrassed that
we come so late into this thing in America. So we will take a look
at what happened to Mrs. Gerd Mueller of the Bronx, New York, and
we will see why so many intelligence agencies are hovering around
there and why an entire building should be torn down by the CIA and
carted off in little boxes the size of trunks. Of course, I will go
myself," said Colonel Speskaya.
He was blond and blue-eyed, of delicate features that hinted of
the Volga Germans. He was reasonably athletic and, as some of his
women said, "technically a great lover but lacks something. He
provides satisfaction the way food stores provide cheese."
Colonel Vladimir Speskaya entered the United States through
Canada in midspring as Anthony Spesk. He was accompanied by his
bodyguard whose name was Nathan. Nathan understood English but did
not speak it. He was five-feet-two and weighed one hundred twenty
pounds.
Nathan overcame this deficit in size by his willingness to shoot
any warm thing. Nathan would put a .38 slug in the mouth of a baby.
Nathan liked seeing blood. He hated targets. Targets didn't
bleed.
Nathan confided to an instructor once that if you shot right
into the heart of someone, they didn't bleed nice.
Nathan gave his advice: "Get the aorta and then you've got
something."
The NKVD didn't know whether to commit him to a hospital for the
criminally insane or promote him. Speskaya took him as a bodyguard
and let him have his gun only when the occasion arose. Nathan asked
if he could at least keep the bullets. Speskaya said this was all
right provided he didn't go around polishing them in public. When
Nathan wore his uniform that called for a holster, Speskaya made
him carry a toy pistol. He was not about to let him walk the
streets of Moscow with a loaded weapon.
Nathan was dark with a ratlike face and protruding front teeth
that looked as if he were a new race of man that fed on birch
bark.
When Colonel Speskaya, alias Anthony Spesk, reached Seneca
Falls, New York, he took a new .38 caliber pistol from his
suitcase-border police never checked one's baggage between Canada
and America-and gave it to Nathan.
"Nathan, this is your gun. I am giving this to you because I
trust you. I trust you know how much Mother Russia depends on you.
You will be able to use this gun but only when I say so. All
right?"
"I swear. By all the saints and by our chairman, by the blood of
all the Russians that is in me, by the heroes of Stalingrad, I
swear and I pledge this caution to you, Colonel. I will, with
frugality and caution, use this instrument and never without your
permission will I fire even one shot."
"Good Nathan," said Anthony Spesk.
Nathan kissed his commander's hand.
At a traffic light entering the New York Thruway, Spesk felt an
explosion behind his right ear. He saw a hitchhiker jump up in the
air, as though being yanked backward. The hitchhiker bled profusely
from the chest. She had been hit in the aorta.
"Sorry," said Nathan.
"Give me the gun," said Spesk.
"I really swear this time," said Nathan.
"If you keep killing people, eventually the American police may
catch us. Now come on. We have important business. Give me the
gun."
"I'm sorry," said Nathan. "I said I'm sorry. I really said it. I
swear it this time. I really swear it. Last time was only a
promise."
"Nathan, I do not have time to argue with you. We must get away
from this place because of what you have done. Do not use that gun
again." Spesk let him keep the gun.
"Thank you, thank you. You are the best colonel that ever was,"
said Nathan, who was good all the way till New Paltz when Spesk
pulled off the road to sign into a motel. Nathan shot the clerk's
face off.
Spesk grabbed the gun away and drove off with the crying
Nathan.
It was really not so bad as it might appear. If one studied
America, as Colonel Speskaya had, one would discover that murders
were rarely solved unless the murderer wanted them solved. There
was just no machinery for protecting the lives of the citizens. If
this were Germany or Holland, Spesk wouldn't even have brought
along a bodyguard.
But America had become such a jungle that it was just not safe
to enter it without protection anymore.
"I will carry the gun," said Spesk angrily as he drove off tired
into the dark night heading for New York City.
"Fascist," mumbled Nathan.
"What?" demanded Spesk.
"Nothing, sir," sniffed Nathan.
It was red dawn when Colonel Speskaya entered New York City. He told Nathan to stop making bang sounds and
pointing.his finger at the few people walking the streets. Nathan
suddenly said he was frightened.
"Why?" asked Spesk, studying a map.
"Because we will starve to death. Or be killed in the food
riots."
"You will not starve in America. Look at those shops. You can
have all the food you want."
"That's only for American generals," Nathan said.
"No. It's for everyone."
"That's a lie."
"Why?" asked Spesk.
"Because Pravda says there are food riots and the people starve
in America."
"Pravda is a long way away. Sometimes stories change at a
distance."
"No. It's in print. I read it."
"What about American newspapers? They don't tell stories about
food riots," Spesk said.
"American newspapers are propaganda."
"But they're printed too," said Spesk.
This caused Nathan some confusion. His brow furrowed. His dark
Russian face clouded with gloom as he thought, difficult and sticky
step by difficult and sticky step. Finally, the pistol killer
smiled.
"It is Russian printing that is always the truth because you can
read it right. It is American printing that lies because we cannot
read it. It can say anything with those funny letters it uses."
"Good, Nathan," said Spesk, but again his bodyguard bothered him
with a question so Spesk said he would explain everything about the
mission now, why he had come into America personally with an
operative who was not familiar with the language.
"But a good shot and a good Communist," Nathan insisted.
"Yes," said Spesk.
"So, may I have my gun?"
"No," said Spesk. "Now listen, because you are getting a rare
treat," said the youngest colonel in the NKVD. "You are getting to
know what is going on. Even generals don't know that."
Nathan said he knew what was going on. They were righting
imperialism. From the borders of Germany where Russian troops were
stationed and into Cuba, until Russia had conquered imperialism
from one end of the world to the other, where no other flag flew
but the hammer and sickle.
"Good," said Spesk. "About ten days ago when you were called in
from Vladivostok, a strange thing was happening in America. The
CIA, our enemy, was tearing down a building piece by piece. This
attracted attention. West German intelligence was interested,
Argentine intelligence was interested. They did what we call
overload an area and we knew that because we traced them moving
large numbers of people-eight and ten, that is a lot in
espionage-out of their normal duties to watch one building being
torn down. To try to talk to the daughter of a woman who was
killed."
"Who killed her?"
"At first we thought muggers."
"What is a mugger?" asked Nathan.
"A mugger is a person who jumps on someone, beats them up, and
takes their money. There are a lot of them in New York City."
"Because of capitalist oppression, there are muggers, correct?"
asked Nathan.
"No, no," said Spesk, annoyed. "I want you to understand this
clearly. Forget everything you've read. In this country, there is
no death penalty in many areas. Somehow they got the notion in this
country that killing someone for a crime is not a deterrent to more
crime. So they took away capital punishment and now they can't walk
their own streets. So I have brought you along because now that
this land has no death penalty, many people go around killing and
you are to protect me. Worse still are the laws regarding those who
are less than eighteen years old. They can kill without even going
to jail and American jails are warm and give three meals a day,
often with meat."
"They must have millions committing crimes to get in," said
Nathan in astonishment, because only when he joined the NKVD did he
eat meat regularly. That was food for ruling Communists, not for the
masses.
"They have millions committing crimes," said Spesk. "But let me
warn you about any idea of committing a crime to get into one of
their jails. We can exchange prisoners for you and then you will go
back to a Russian jail. And we kill, friend. And not all that
quickly for defectors."
Nathan said he had no intention of defecting.
"Which brings up, Nathan, why I, personally am here. Now you
must already be thinking how stupid Americans are. And this is very
true. They are stupid. If you tell Americans something is moral,
they will cut their own throats for it. Except, sometimes, certain
people stop them."
"Who?" demanded Nathan in the back seat of the car parked under
a train that went above them on rails very high up. It was an
American elevated train that some of their cities had. Every time a
train passed, Nathan trembled because he thought the train might
fall. Buildings fell down in Moscow so why shouldn't trains that
rattled so much fall also?
"We stop them," Spesk said. "You see, our generals do not
want the capitalists to cut their own throats because that would
make the generals look unimportant. They want it to appear as if
their hands are on the razor. Therefore, they have to do something and every time they do
something, they make the capitalists look smarter. Therefore, we
come here to the Bronx in America. To this slum."
"It looks all right to me," said Nathan, noticing the shops
open, their windows crammed with goods and foods, and how well
everyone appeared to dress, without great patches, and with shoes
without rags holding them on.
"By American standards it is a slum. There is worse yet, but
never mind. I go here myself personally because they would, if I
left it to the generals, they would write reports that said
everything so no matter what happened, they would have predicted
it. Our generals are as stupid as American generals. As a matter of
fact, they are identical. A general is a general is a general which
is why when one surrenders, he has dinner with his conqueror. They
are all identical. So you and I are here to see what all this fuss
is about and then we will figure out what we will do about it and
when we return to Mother Russia, we will both be heroes of the
Soviet Socialist Republics, yes?"
"Yes," said Nathan. "Heroes." And he thought how nice it would
be to shoot up between the railroad tracks and get a kneecap or the
groin. The groin was a wonderful place to shoot people except that
they died only sometimes. The colonel still held his gun. But he
would have to give it back when they saw muggers.
"Mugger," said Nathan happily, and pointed at a man with a blue
cap and a blue suit who had a whistle in his mouth and wore white
gloves and stood in the middle of a very large and wide street with
high buildings all around. He would have made a wonderful target.
There was even a shiny silver star on his chest. Nathan could hit
that star.
"No. That is a black policeman," said Spesk. "You are thinking
of nigger, not mugger. Nigger is a word Americans who are black do
not like to be called."
"What do they like to be called?" asked Nathan.
"That depends. It is always changing. Once it was Negro and
black was bad, then it was black and Negro was bad, then it was
Afro-American, but it is never nigger. Many of the muggers are
black though. Most are."
"But don't the racist police shoot black nigger Afro-Americans
all the time? Negroes?"
"Obviously not," said Spesk. "Or there wouldn't be the mugging
problem."
"I hate racists," said Nathan.
"Good," said Spesk. As he calculated, the building they were
looking for would be toward the main center of the city which was
called Manhattan, yet still in an outlying district called the
Bronx.
"I also hate Africans. They are ugly and black. I want to vomit
when I see something so ugly and black," Nathan said, and spat out
the window. "Someday socialism will end racism and blacks."
The first thing that told Spesk they were near the area was a
yellow-striped roadblock. Instead of going closer, he veered off
the large American street down a hill into a residential area. If
all the reports were true, anyone turning into these roadblocks
passed the very casual and very armed American lounging around,
would be photographed, and perhaps even stopped and questioned.
There were better ways to penetrate in America. One did not have
to have expensive spies worming their way into the innards of the
defense establishment. There were cheaper and easier ways. One did
not have to play spy all the time in America.
So when Spesk saw the garbage stacked neatly in cans along the
curb, he realized he was in a safe enough neighborhood to park. He
found a tavern and told Nathan not to talk.
Spesk himself had been one of the bilingual children. Right
after the Second World War, the NKVD began nurseries where children
learned English and Chinese almost as soon as Russian, so that they
would not only speak without accents but would think in the foreign
languages also. Children, it had been discovered, learned to
duplicate sounds exactly, while grownups could only reproduce
sounds they had learned in their childhood. All of which meant
Spesk could walk into Winarski's Tavern, just off the Grand
Concourse in the Bronx of New York City, America, and sound as if
he came from Chicago.
He ordered a beer, fella, and wondered, fella, how business was,
fella, and gee, golly, what a great looking bar the guy had here,
and by the way what were all those yellow barricades doing on the
other side of the Concourse?
"Buildings. Tearing down. Niggers there," said the bartender
whose English lacked Spesk's precision and clarity.
"Why are they tearing down a building, pal? Huh? How come?"
asked Spesk as if he had worked his way through Douglas MacArthur
High School by delivering Chicago Tribunes.
"They tear down. The politicians. They tear down, they build up."
"That's going up?"
"Nothing. Men there with guns. I bet drugs. They looking. I bet
heroin," said the bartender.
"A lot of men?"
"Three blocks around. Cameras too. In apartments. You don't need
to go there. Niggers over there. You stay here," said the
bartender.
"You bet I will," said Spesk. "Say, was there anything in the
papers about it? I mean, that's sort of wierd, isn't it, tearing
down a building with a lot of guys with guns standing around?"
"Drugs I bet. Heroin. Does he want a drink?" asked the
bartender, nodding to Nathan. Nathan stared behind the bar. Nathan
drooled.
"You have a gun back there," said Spesk. "Please put it out of
sight." He slapped Nathan on the shoulder and put his tongue over
his lips to indicate he wanted silence.
Spesk spent the afternoon in the bar, buying drinks
occasionally, playing a game of darts, and just chewing the fat
with all the nice guys who came and went, fella, nice to see you,
catch you again next time.
There had been a wounding of a young black there and some black
minister had made a fuss, someone told Spesk. Guy's name was
Wadson, Reverend Josiah. Wadson had a police record for breaking
and entering, procurement, assault with a deadly weapon, rape,
assault with intent to kill, even though the police had orders from
City Hall to keep it quiet.
"I bet you're a cop, right?" asked Tony Spesk, alias Colonel
Speskaya.
"Yeah. A sergeant," said the man.
Tony Spesk bought the guy a beer and told him the problem with
New York City was that the cops' hands were tied. And they didn't
get paid enough.
The sergeant thought this was true. God's honest truth. What
Colonel Speskaya did not tell the sergeant was that the municipal
in Moscow felt the same way, as did the London bobby and the
Tanzanian people's constable.
"Wonder what all that stuff is over there? On Walton Avenue, is
it?"
"Oh, that," said the sergeant. "Hush-hush. They moved the CIA
in, about eight days ago. It was a fuckup."
"Yeah?" said Tony Spesk. Nathan eyed the little revolver in the
sergeant's belt. He moved a hand out toward it. Spesk slapped the
hand away and pushed him toward the door, motioning to their car.
Spesk did not want to tell him to get out in Russian.
Back at the table, the sergeant told Spesk that he had a friend
who knew one of the CIA guys there and everything was fouled up.
Everything. They had been too late.
Too late for what? asked Spesk, Tony Spesk, Carbondale,
Illinois appliance salesman. As with most rummies, an hour and a
half of drinking had made Spesk a lifelong friend of the police
sergeant. Which was how he was introduced as "my buddy, Tony" to
another friend and how they all decided to go out for a night on
the town because Tony had an expense account. And they took Joe
with them.
Joe-you had to promise not to breathe a word of it-was an
operative for the CIA.
"You're full of shit," said Tony Spesk.
"He is," said the sergeant with a wink.
They went to a Hawaiian restaurant. Joe had a Singapore Sling.
He saved the little purple paper umbrellas they put in the drinks
to make them cute enough to charge $3.25 for them. When Joe had
collected five of those umbrellas with Tony paying, he had the
damndest story to tell.
There was this German engineer. Frigging Kraut. Did he tell
everybody that the guy was a German? Yeah? Okay. Well, he invented
this thing, see. Whaddya mean, what thing? It was secret. Like a
secret weapon. Invented it right in his Kraut cellar or attic or
something.
Back during Double-U Double-U Two. Don't tell anybody because
it's a secret. Now where was he?
"What kind of weapon?" asked Tony Spesk.
Joe inhaled the rummy fumes from the Singapore Sling. "Nobody
knows. That's why it's a secret. I got to piss."
"Go in your pants," said Spesk with authority. The sergeant had
passed out already and no one noticed that Spesk wasn't really
drinking.
"All right," said Joe. "Just a minute. Okay. That takes care of
that. Maybe this thing reads minds, nobody knows."
"Did you find it?" asked Spesk.
"Ooooh, it's wet," said the man earning thirty-two thousand
dollars a year to protect America's interests around the world
through his mental superiority, cunning, and self-discipline.
"It'll dry," said Spesk. "Did you find it?"
"It's too late," said Joe.
"Why?"
"Because I've gone already," said the agent for the most
hooplaed secret service since Nero's Praetorian Guard.
"No. Why was it too late for the secret weapon?"
"It was gone. We couldn't find it. We only found out it existed
because the East Germans showed up looking for it."
"And they didn't tell," said Spesk. There would be some dues to
pay for this treachery toward Russia. Obviously some of the old
Gestapo working now with East Germany had remembered the dead man's
name and told how he had invented some kind of device, and the East
German secret police went looking for it, without telling the
Russian NKVD, and the Americans saw the East Germans looking and
they looked, and then everybody went looking.
Of course, there was a possibility that America had planted
something in that neighborhood to draw out spies from other
countries, but Spesk dismissed that. If they caught you, they would
hold you for a trade. Gone were the old Cold War illusions of being
able to permanently keep other countries' operatives out of your
own country.
Why bother? There was just too much traffic. They would monitor
it; they wouldn't stop it. No. The story about the device was real.
At least the Americans thought so. But why so much fuss? Thirty
years old, the machine could not have had much practical
application. Thirty years ago, there hadn't been lie detectors,
bio-feedback machines, sodium pentothal. A whole trip sneaking into
America wasted for just a nonsense device. Spesk almost laughed.
For what? To look into people's heads and see what went on? Usually
it was just disconnected gibberish.
Outside, Nathan slept in the back seat of the car. American
traffic was inordinately heavy outside the restaurant. No. It was
normal. Spesk was judging it by Moscow standards where there were
few cars. Spesk was bothered.
The CIA man, Joe, had had a night off. His operation had started
only ten days before. This wasn't a night off. CIA tours went on
for a minimum of twenty days and, as often as not, until a mission
was completed.
Joe had a night off because the mission was over. The Americans
had not found what they were looking for and they were just pulling
out the CIA.
Spesk would have to look for himself.
Spesk did not often worry but tonight he was worried. He woke up
Nathan and gave him his gun.
"Nathan, I am giving you the gun. Do not shoot it at anyone just
yet because you will have to use it soon enough. I do not want us
hiding the gun because you shoot some stranger, when you may have
to use it to save our lives very soon."
"Just one, now?" asked Nathan.
"None, now," said Spesk.
As he thought, he drove his large smooth American car into the
area that had been sealed off by yellow painted roadblocks. The
roadblocks were gone now.
It was one a.m. Black teenagers roamed the street. A few tried
to break into their slow-moving car but Spesk had Nathan with him.
And just showing the gun kept them away.
Spesk slowed the car at the site where the building had been
torn down. He noticed a large hole in the ground. He left the car
with Nathan out behind him, holding the gun. They had excavated,
these Americans. They had excavated and still not found it.
Spesk's keen eyes noticed the small marks at the edge of the
lot. They had excavated with chisels. Therefore the device was
small. If it existed. If it was worth anything.
And then there was the shot behind him.
Nathan had done it. He had not fired to protect them. He had
shot at an Oriental in glaring yellow kimono across the street and
now, the white man who was with the Oriental was moving across the
street.
Spesk did not have time to wonder what another white man was
doing in this neighborhood. The white man moved too quickly for
that. Nathan fired again and it seemed as if it was aimed right at
the oncoming chest. There was no way Nathan could have missed.
And yet the thin white man was at him and virtually through him
by the time the shot stopped ringing in Spesk's ear. The white
man's hands hardly seemed to move, yet they were out and back and
Nathan's dark skull collapsed beneath the man's fingertips and his
brains went shooting out the other side as though popped from a cookie gun.
"Thank you," said Spesk. "That man was about to kill me."
CHAPTER FOUR
"Anytime I can, I'm glad to help," said Remo to the blond man,
who showed an amazing coolness for someone who had moments before
feared for his life. The dark-haired man with a gun lay very
finally on the sidewalk, his mind not troubling him because it was
spread in a fanlike pattern of brain just beyond his head like a
sunrise. The slum smelled of that same strange old coffee-ground
flavor Remo noticed in slums all over. They all smelled of it, even
in areas that didn't use coffee. A sticky early summer coolness
blew down Walton Avenue. Remo wore his usual slacks, loafers, and
tee shirt.
"What's your name?" Remo asked.
"Spesk. Tony Spesk. I sell appliances."
"What were you doing out here?"
"I was driving along downtown and that man broke into my car,
stuck a gun in my neck, and ordered me ta drive here. I guess he
decided to shoot at you when he saw you. So thanks, pal. Thanks
again."
"You're welcome," Remo said. The man was overdressed. His tie
was pink. "That your car?"
"Yes," said Spesk. "Who are you? A policeman?"
"No. Not that," Remo said.
"You sound like a policeman."
"I sound like a lot of things. I sell diet gelatin. I sell
strawberry and chocolate and cocoa almond cream."
"Oh," said Spesk. "That sounds interesting."
"Not as interesting as tapioca," Remo said. "Tapioca is a
thrill." The man was lying of course. He had not come down to the
states from Canada-the car had Canadian plates-to sell appliances.
The man behind him had left the car a good time after good old Tony
Spesk, to provide cover. And this was evident because the man had
been more interested in roofs and windows than in the man he was
supposed to be threatening.
And then the man had seen Chiun and wheeled for a shot. There
was no reason for that shot. He didn't know who Chiun was, or Remo.
He just shot, which was strange. But the dead dark-haired man
belonged to yellow-haired Tony Spesk. There was no doubt about
that.
"Do you need some help?" Remo asked.
"No, no. Do you need some help? Say, fella, I like the way you
moved. You a professional athlete?"
"Sort of," Remo said.
"I can pay you double. You're not young. You're at the end of
your career."
"In my game," Remo said, "young is fifty. What do you want me
for?"
"I just thought a man with your abilities might want to make
himself some good money, fella. That's all."
"Look," said Remo. "I really don't believe anything you've said,
but I'm too busy to keep an eye on you, so just so I'll recognize
you at a distance and maybe slow you up a little…" Remo let
his right palm slap down at the man's knee, very gently.
And Spesk, standing there, remembered when a tank had thrown a
tread and it had taken off an infantryman's knee. The calf was held
to the thigh by a strand. The tank tread had shot off so fast, he
had hardly seen it. This man's hand moved faster and there was a
searing, emptying pain at his left knee, and even as he dropped,
gasping in pain; he knew he wanted this man for Mother Russia.
This man would be more valuable than any silly toy created thirty
years ago. This man moved in a way Spesk had never seen before. It
was not something better than any other man; it was something
different.
And at twenty-four, and the youngest colonel in the Soviet, he
was probably the only officer of that rank who would dare make the
decision he made now, going down to the sidewalk, his left leg
useless. He was going to get that man for Russia. The dunderheads
in the higher ranks might not understand immediately, but
eventually they would see that there was an advantage in this man,
offered by no machine or device.
Spesk crawled, crying, to his car and jerkily drove away. He
would find compatriots in New York who could arrange for medical
care. It was not safe to lie wounded in this area, not without
Nathan for protection.
Remo walked back to his car. A young black boy hopped around,
clutching his wrist. Apparently he had attempted to pull Chiun's
beard and had been immediately disappointed to find out here was
not a frail old rabbi.
"What depths your nation has sunk to. What indescribable
horrors," said Chiun.
"What's the matter?"
"That thing dared touch the body of the Master of Sinanju. Have
they not been taught respect?"
"I'm surprised he's alive," Remo said.
"I have not been paid to clean the streets of your cities. Have
you not had enough of this country, a country where children would
dare touch the Master of Sinanju?"
"Little Father, there are things that trouble me about my
country. But not fear for your person. There are other people out
there though, people without your skills, who are not protected as
you are by your skills. Smith is worried about some gadget that
somebody invented. But I am worried because an old woman has been
killed. And it doesn't matter to anyone. It doesn't matter," said
Remo and he felt the blood run hot up his neck and his hands
trembled and it was as if he had never been taught to breathe
properly. "It's wrong. It's unjust. It goddam stinks."
Chiun smiled and looked knowingly at his pupil.
"You have learned much, Remo. You have learned to awaken your
body in a world where most people's bodies go from mother's breast
to grave without ever the breath of full life. Hardly is there a
man to challenge your skills. Yet no master of Sinanju, for century
upon century, has had skill enough to do what you wish to do."
"What is that, Little Father?"
"End injustice."
"I don't want to end it, Little Father. I just don't want it to
flourish."
"Be it enough that in your own heart and your own village,
justice triumphs."
And Remo knew he was about to hear the story of Sinanju again,
how the village was so poor that the babies could not be supported
during the lean years and had to be put to sleep in the cold waters
of the West Korea Bay. Until the first Master of Sinanju many centuries
before had begun to rent out his talents to rulers. And thus was
born the sun source of all the martial arts, Sinanju. And by
serving well the monarchs, each Master saved the babies. This was
Remo's justice.
"Each task you perform with perfection feeds the children of
Sinanju," Chiun said.
"They're a bunch of ingrates in Sinanju and you know it," said
Remo.
"Yes, Remo, but they are our ingrates," said Chiun, and a long
fingernail stressed the point in the dark night.
It was dark because the neighborhood's street lamps had been
torn down when the people discovered they could sell pieces of the
new aluminum poles to junkyards. There had been a television
special on the darkness in the slums, comparing it to a form of
genocide, whereby the system stole light from the blacks. A
sociologist made a detailed study and blamed the city for being in
collusion with the junkyards to put up lights that could be torn
down without too much effort. "Again, the blacks are victims," the
sociologist had said on television, "of white profits." He did not
dwell on who did the tearing down or whose taxes paid for the lamp
posts in the first place.
Remo looked around the street. Chiun slowly shook his head.
"I'm going to find out who did in Mrs. Mueller," Remo said.
"And then what?"
"Then I am going to see that justice is done," Remo said. "Aieee," wailed Chiun. "What a waste of a good
assassin. My precious work and time squandered in fits of emotion."
Ordinarily Chiun would seclude himself in a cloak of silence upon
hearing such Western nonsense.
But this time he did not. He asked what sort of justice Remo
sought. If it were youngsters who killed the old woman, then they
took but a few years of her life. Should he take many years of
their lives? That would be unjust.
The body of the man Remo had killed lay on the sidewalk. Police
would come in the morning, thought Remo. Just as people had seen
him from the windows, there must have been people who had seen the
killers or killer come out of Mrs. Mueller's house. Or if it were a
gang, one of them must have talked.
Smith had given Remo some details about the gadget he was
looking for and about Gerd Mueller's work in Germany. The only
thing mentioned about the old woman's death was that it was
apparently not done by anyone important.
"You," said Remo to a fat woman leaning out the window, her
large black globular breasts pushed up over her fat black arms.
"You live there?"
"No. Ah just comes down here to see how the colored lives."
"I'm willing to pay for information."
"Brother," she said. She had a deep throaty voice. "That makes
you down home people."
Remo offered a five and that was taken and the woman asked where
the rest was. And Remo held up two hundred-dollar bills very close
to her face and she made a goodly snatch at the bills, but Remo
lowered them, then raised them, giving her the feeling that she had
grabbed at the bills but they had dematerialized for a moment. It
was so amazing to her that she tried again. And then again.
"How you do that?" asked the woman.
"I got rhythm," said Remo.
"What you wanna know?"
"There was an old woman, a white woman."
"De Missus Mueller."
"That's right."
"She daid. I know that the woman you want 'cause everybody axes
about her."
"I know that. But do you know anyone who went into that house
that day? What do you hear on the street?"
"Well, now, I been axed that a lot. And I been real fine at
that. I tells them nothing. It funny they axes so much, 'cause it
only a killing."
"Did you know her?"
"No. De whites don' usually go out, 'cepting 'bout de ungodly
hour."
"When's that? The ungodly hour?" asked Remo.
"Nine o'clock in de morning," said the woman.
"Do you know who operates around here? What sort of gangs? Maybe
they know more things. I pay good money."
"You want to know who kill her, white boy?"
"That's what I want."
"De Lawds."
"You know that?"
"Everybody know that. De Lawds, dey got dis street. It theirs.
Their turf. Dey gonna get you too, white boy, lessen you come
inside, you and that funny-looking yellow friend of yours."
Remo offered up the bills again and this time he let her hand
close on them. But he held the bottoms of the two bills.
"How come you can lean out of that window in safety, leaving it
open and all that?" Remo asked.
" 'Cause I black."
"No," said Remo. "Punks will do it to anybody weak enough. Your
skin doesn't protect you."
" 'Cause I black and I blow they muthafucking heads off," she
said, and with the other hand, she brought out a sawed-off shotgun.
"I gots my saviour here. I got one of them in the balls four years
ago 'bout. He lay on that sidewalk theah and hollered. Than I gives
him a bit of de ole Georgia Peach in de eyes."
"That's boiling lye?" asked Remo incredulously.
"The best. I keeps a pot boilin' all the time. Now you take you
whites. They don't 'stablish themselves as peoples what got to be
respected no more. I black. I speak the street language. Sawed off
in the balls and lye in the face and I ain' had no trouble sincet.
You and you funny-lookin' friend oughtta come in here for the
night. You gonna be like that whitey you killed 'cross the street.
They ain't no more white men on this block like they was yesterday.
No sir."
"Thank you, granny, but I'll take my chances. The Lords, you
say?"
"De Saxon Lawds."
"Thanks again."
"The policemens know about them. They knows who did it. The ones
who gets the body. It was real early so I wasn't about yet but they
comes out and they did that barbarous thing, over in that alley,
'cept they ain't no alley no more 'cause they takes the building
down. But they was an alley then. And some boys, they up real late
and they not thinkin' or nuffin' and they think it just a white
folks and not a policemans and the policemans does the 'trocity, he
shoots the boy in the arm. That the barbarousness of it."
Remo wasn't interested in the barbarousness of some black kid
getting shot when he tried to steal a cop's gun.
"Do you know the names of the cops who know who killed the old
woman?" he asked.
"Ah doan know de names of policemens. Ah doan truck wif dem. Ah
doan have no numbahs, no dope."
"Thank you, ma'am, and have a pleasant evening."
"You cute there, whitey. Watch you ass, y'hear?"
The headquarters of this Bronx Police Precinct was nicknamed
Fort Mohican. Sandbags covered the windows. Remo saw a patrol car
pull out of an alley with two illegal Russian Kalashnikov assault
rifles and hand grenades on the dashboard.
Remo knocked on the closed precinct door.
"Come back in the morning," said a voice.
"FBI," said Remo, juggling through some identification cards he
always carried. He found the FBI card with his photograph. He held
it up to a small telescopic peephole in the door.
"Yeah, FBI, what do you want?"
"I want to come in and talk," said Remo. Chiun looked around
with disdain.
"The mark of a civilization," Chiun said, "is how little its
people need to know about defending themselves."
"Shhhh," said Remo.
"Is there someone out there with you?"
"Yes," said Remo.
"Move fifty yards away or we'll start lobbing mortars."
"I want to talk to you."
"This is a New York City police precinct. We don't open till
nine a.m. for visitors."
"I'm from the FBI."
"Then tap our phones from Downtown."
"I want to talk to you."
"Did the patrol make it out safely?"
"You mean that police car?"
"Yes."
"It did."
"How did you get here at night?"
"We got here," said Remo.
"You must have had a convoy."
"No convoy. Just us."
"Look around. Is anybody loitering nearby? Anybody watching
us?"
Remo turned and looked. "No," he said.
"Okay. Get in here fast." The door opened a crack and Remo eased
his way in, followed, by Chiun.
"What is this old guy, a magician? Is that how you got here?"
asked the policeman. He had dark black hair but his face was
fraught with tension and age. He kept his hand on his pistol. The
officer wanted to know who Chiun was in those strange robes. He
wanted to see if Chiun had a concealed weapon. He thought Chiun was
a magician and that was how the two got through to Fort Mohican.
His name was Sergeant Pleskoff. He had been promoted to sergeant
because he had never fired at what was called "a Third World
person." He knew a lot about crime. He had seen hundreds of
muggings and twenty-nine homicides. And he was very close to his
first arrest.
He was the new breed of American police officer, no longer a
racist, hard-nosed bully but a man who could relate to his
community. The other officers liked Sergeant Pleskoff too. He made
sure their pay records were always in order and he wasn't one of
those narrow-minded, old-fashioned annoying sort of sergeants who,
when you were 'on duty, actually expected you to be in the state of
New York.
Pleskoff kept Remo and Chiun covered with two machine guns set
up on desks surrounding the front door.
Remo showed his identification.
"You probably don't know that the CIA is handling that thing on
Walton Avenue," Pleskoff said.
"I'm not here about the thing on Walton Avenue. I'm here about
the woman who was killed. The old woman. She was white."
"You have your nerve," said Pleskoff angrily. "You come in here
and expect a New York City police precinct to be open at night,
just like that, in this kind of neighborhood, and
then you ask about the death of some
old white lady. Which old white lady?"
"The old white lady who was tied to her bed and tortured to
death."
"Which old white lady who was tied to her bed and tortured to
death? You think I'm some kind of genius that remembers every white
person killed in my precinct? We have computers to do that. We're
not some old-fashioned police force that loses its cool just
because someone gets mangled to death."
Pleskoff lit a cigarette with a gold lighter.
"Can I ask a question? I used to know a lot of cops," said Remo,
"and I never used to hear talk like this. What do you do?"
"Establish a police presence in the community which relates to
the needs and aspirations of the inhabitants. And, I guarantee,
every officer in this precinct has been sensitized to Third World
aspirations and how… don't walk in front of the peephole so
much… sometimes they'll come up and put a shot in the
peephole…"
"There's no one outside," said Remo.
"How do you know?"
"I know," said Remo.
"That's amazing. There are so many things in the world that
amaze one. The other day I saw some squiggles on a piece of paper
and do you know what they were made from? The human finger pads
have oil on them and when you touch something, it makes a pattern,
much like a linear Renoir interpretation of Sudanese sculpture.
It's oval," said Pleskoff.
"It's called a fingerprint," Remo said.
"I don't read mystery fiction," Pleskoff said. "It's
racist."
"I heard you people here know who killed an old white woman,
Mrs. Gerd Mueller, on Walton Avenue."
"Walton Avenue, that would be either the Saxon Lords or the Stone Shieks of Allah. We have a wonderful Third
World program that relates to indigenous community peoples whereby
we are the extension of their aspirations. We have an excellent
program that teaches how the white world exploits and oppresses the
black world. But we had to postpone it because of the Downstate
Medical Center."
"What did they do?" asked Remo.
"With typical white insensitivity, they announced that they were
buying human eyes for an eyebank. Did they realize, did they even
care about the effect that would have on young indigenous Third
World peoples who live here? No. They just let the word out that
they would pay for eyes donated. They carelessly didn't specify
that the donations should be from dead people. And we lost our
program for awhile."
"I don't understand," said Remo.
"Well, the police lieutenant who gave the lecture on how the
black person is always robbed by the whites, he came in here with a
pair of eyes thrown right in his face by a Third World youth who
had been promised so much by the Downstate Medical Center. It
destroyed our good rapport with the community."
"What did?" asked Remo.
"The Medical Center ripped off the Third World again by refusing
to pay for the eyes. The proud young Afro-American Third World
black man, foolishly trusting the whites, brought in a pair of
fresh eyes that he had obtained, and the medical center ripped him
off by refusing to buy them. Said they wouldn't take a pair of
fresh eyes in a Ripple bottle. Can you imagine anything so racist
as that? No wonder the community is outraged."
Sergeant Pleskoff went on about the oppression of the Third
World as he showed Remo the computer system that made this precinct
twenty percent more effective than other New York City police
precincts.
"We are an anticrime impact area. This is where the federal
government has poured extra money into fighting crime."
"Like what?" asked Remo. He couldn't perceive any crime being
fought.
"For one thing, with the extra money we sent sound trucks into
the areas reconfirming the identity of Third World youth as
oppressed victims of whites."
"You're white, aren't you?" asked Remo.
"Absolutely," said Pleskoff, "and ashamed of it." He seemed
proud to be ashamed.
"Why? You had no more say in your becoming white than somebody
else does in his becoming black," Remo said.
"Or any other similar lesser race," said Chiun, lest racist
Americans confuse their lesser races with the better one which was
yellow.
"I'm ashamed because of the great debt we owe to the great black
race. Look," said Pleskoff confidentially. "I don't know the
answers. I'm just a cop. I follow orders. There are people who are
smarter than me. If I give the cockamamie answers, I get promoted.
If, God forbid, I should ever let on that a black family moving
onto your block isn't a blessing from Allah, I'd be cashiered. I
live in Aspen, Colorado myself."
"Why Aspen? Why so far away?"
"Because I couldn't get to the pre-Civil War South," said
Pleskoff. "Between you and me I used to root for the Rebels in
those Civil War movies. Aren't you sorry we won now?"
"I want to know who killed the old woman, Mrs. Gerd Mueller of
Walton Avenue," said Remo.
"I didn't know the FBI dealt in murder. What's federal about a
killing?"
"It is a federal case. It's the most important case in the last
two hundred years. It is very basic, as basic as the cave. The old
and the weak are to be protected by their young men. Until
recently, that's been the general mark of civilization. Maybe I've
been paid to protect that old lady. Maybe the money she turned out
of her pocketbook to pay my salary, your salary, maybe that just
owes her that her killer doesn't waltz away to some psychiatric
interview, if by some incredible accident he gets caught. Maybe,
just maybe now with one little old white lady, the American people
say 'enough.' "
"Gee, that's stirring," said Pleskoff. "To be honest, sometimes
I want to help protect old people. But when you're a New York City
cop, you can't do everything you want."
Pleskoff showed Remo the pride of the precinct, the main battle
weapon in the new seventeen-million mass-impact, high-priority,
anticrime battle. It was a $4.5 million computer.
"What does it do?"
"What does it do?" said Pleskoff proudly. "You say you want to
know about a Mrs. Mueller, Gerd, homicide?" Pleskoff pressed a
keyboard. He hummed. The machine spat out a stack of white cards
into a metal tray. They fell there quietly, those twenty cards
representing twenty deaths.
"Don't look so distraught, sir," said Pleskoff.
"Are those the elderly deaths for the city?" asked Remo.
"Oh, no," said Pleskoff. "Those are the Muellers. You ought to
see the Schwartzes and the Sweeneys. You could play contract bridge
with them."
Remo found cards for Mrs. Mueller and her husband.
"Homicide? Why is he in the homicide file?" Remo asked.
Pleskoff shrugged and looked at the card. "Okay, I see now.
Sometimes you'll have some old-timer who still believes in the
old-fashioned direct limited link of victim-crime-killer. You
know, the old way, criminal commits the crime, get the criminal?
The mindless visceral irresponsible reaction that often leads to
such atrocities as a police riot."
"Which means?" asked Remo.
"Which means, this officer, this reactionary racist as an act of
defiance against the department and his precinct mislabeled Gerd
Mueller's death a murder. It was a heart attack."
"That's what I was told," said Remo. "I thought so."
"So did everyone except that racist. It was a heart attack,
brought on by a knife injected into it. But you know how backward
your traditional Irish cop is. Fortunately, they've got a union now
and it helps enlighten them. You won't find them flying off the
handle anymore. Except if it's union business."
"Guess what?" said Remo. "You are about to identify a criminal.
You are about to take me to the Saxon Lords. You are going to
identify a killer."
"You can't make me do that. I'm a New York, City policeman. We
have union rules, you know."
Remo grabbed the lobe of Sergeant Pleskoff's right ear and
twisted. It caused pain. Pleskoff smiled because the pain made him
smile. Then he cried. Big tears came to his eyes.
"There's a very stiff penalty for assaulting a policeman," he
gasped.
"When I find one in this remnant of a city, I promise I will not
assault him."
Remo dragged the crying Sergeant Pleskoff from the stationhouse.
The patrolmen behind the machine guns threatened to shoot because,
in this case, it was legal.
"Don't think you're assaulting some ordinary citizen," yelled
one patrolman. "That's a police officer and that's a crime. What do
you think he is? Some rabbi or priest? That's a cop. There are laws
against doing things to cops."
Remo noticed a large dark stain spread over the blue crotch of
Sergeant Pleskoff. A New York City policeman had discovered to his
horror that he was going to have to go out in the street after
dark.
The night had cooled off. As soon as they were out of the
stationhouse, the door bolted behind them.
"Oh God, what have I done? What have I done?" moaned Sergeant
Pleskoff.
Chiun chuckled and said in Korean to Remo that he was fighting
against a wave, instead of moving with it.
"I won't be the only one who drowns, Little Father," Remo said.
And his voice was grim.
CHAPTER FIVE
Twisting an ear just before the tearing point is more secure
than a rein. It is also a more effective information-gathering
device. Keep the person who owned the ear just barely in pain-it
did not have to be a lot of pain-and the person would start
answering questions. On obvious lies, start the pain flowing again
so that the person himself would make his body into a truth
machine. It was not force that was required, but timing.
Sergeant Pleskoff, his right ear between Remo's fingers, thought
the streets looked strange at night.
"This is a beat," said Remo. "You're going to walk it now."
Three black forms hovered in a doorway. A young girl called out
at the door: "Ma, it's me. Let me in, you hear?"
One of the other dark forms was a young man. He held his hand to
the girl's throat. In that hand, he held a cheap dime store saw
with a pistol grip.
"That is a crime," whispered Remo, pointing across the darkened
street.
"Yes. Bad housing is a crime against Third World peoples."
"No. No," said Remo. "You are not an economist. You are not a
housing expert. You are a policeman. See. Someone is holding a saw
to that girl's throat. That's your business."
"I wonder why he's doing that?"
"No. You're not a psychiatrist," said Remo and he began to twist
Pleskoff's ear to the point of tearing. "Now think. What should you
do?"
"Picket City Hall for jobs for young Afro-Americans?"
"No," said Remo.
"Demonstrate against racism?" said Sergeant PleskofE, between
gasps of pain.
"No racism there, Sergeant Pleskoff. That's black on black,"
said Remo. One of the men at the door with the young girl spotted
Remo, Sergeant Pleskoff, and Chiun. Apparently he did not think the
trio was worth bothering about. He turned back to the door waiting
for the girl's mother to open it.
"Aw, right, Peaches," said the older man at the door. It was now
time for threats. "We jam de lye up Delphinia's twat. Y'heah? Now
you open dat mufu doah and spread yo' beaver 'cause it muvver and
daughter night. Bofe of you be pleasured for de night."
"It's apparently a double rape with probable robbery coming up
and I'd say a possible murder also," Remo said. "Wouldn't you,
Chiun?"
"Wouldn't I what?" asked Chiun.
"Say it's those crimes."
"A crime is a matter of law," said Chiun. "I see two men
overpowering a girl. Who knows what weapon she has? No. Crime
requires that I judge right and wrong and the right I know is the
way to breathe and move and live. So are they right? No, they are
all wrong for all of them breathe badly and move half asleep." Thus
spake Oliver Wendell Chiun.
"See?" said Sergeant Pleskoff desperately.
"Arrest the men," said Remo.
"I'm one, they're two."
"You have a gun," said Remo.
"And endanger my retirement, my advancement points, my clothing
allowance? They're not harming a policeman. That girl is too young
to be a policeman."
"Either you use your gun on them or I use it on you," said Remo
and released Sergeant Pleskoff's ear.
"Aha, you have threatened a police officer and are endangering a
police officer," yelled Pleskoffi and went for his gun. His hand
shot down to the black handle and closed on it and ripped the .38
Police Special with the delicious heavy lead slug, creased down the
middle to make a dumdum to splatter in his attacker's face. The
bullet was not only illegal for New York City policemen, it had
been made illegal for warfare by the Geneva Convention. But
Sergeant Pleskoffi knew he would only draw his gun in self-defense.
You needed it when you left Aspen. He supported laws against
handguns because he got advancement points for doing it. What
difference did another law make? This was New York City. It had
lots of laws, the most humanitarian laws in the country. But only
one was in effect and Sergeant Pleskoff was going to enforce it
now. The law of the jungle. He had been attacked, his ear had been
brutalized, he had been threatened, and that FBI man who had gone
bananas was going to pay for it.
But the gun seemed to float out of his hand and he was squeezing
empty air. The FBI man, in the too-casual clothes for an FBI man,
seemed to slide under and into the gun and then he had it. And he
was offering it back, and Pleskoff took it back, and tried to kill
him again and that didn't work either.
"Them or you," said Remo.
"Reasonable," said Sergeant Pleskoff, not quite sure whether
this would be a proper defense before a police review board. It was
just like a shooting range. Bang. The large one dropped, his head
jerking like it was on a chain pulley. Bang. Bang. And he blew the
spinal column out of the smaller one.
"I meant arrest them, you maniac," said Remo.
"I know," said Sergeant Pleskoff in a daze. "But I was afraid. I
don't know why."
"It's okay, ma," yelled the girl and the door opened and a woman
in a blue bathrobe peeked out.
"Thank the Lawd. You safe, chile?" she asked.
"De policemans, he do it," said the girl.
"God bless you, officer," yelled the woman, taking her daughter
safely inside and bolting and reinforcing the locks.
A strange feeling overcame Sergeant Pleskoff. He couldn't
describe it.
"Pride," said Remo. "Some cops have it."
"You know," said Pleskoff, excited. "We could get some of us
down at the station house, on our off-hours, to walk the streets
and do this sort of thing. In disguises, of course, so we wouldn't
get reported to the commissioner. I know the old-timers used to do
things like this, stop muggings and stuff, and shoot the shit out
of anyone who endangers anyone else. Even if it isn't a cop. Let's
get the Saxon Lords."
"I want to find out who did in Mrs. Mueller. So I've got to talk
to them," Remo said. "Dead men don't talk."
"Fuck 'em. Shoot 'em all," said Pleskoff.
Remo took his gun away. "Just the bad guys."
"Right," said Pleskoff. "Can I reload?"
"No," said Remo.
"You know, I may not even get into trouble for this. Nobody has
to know it was a' policeman who stopped a robbery and rape. They
could think it was a relative who shot up those two or maybe they
didn't pay a Mafia loan shark. Then there would be no fuss at
all."
This idea made Pleskoff happy. He was not sure whether the women
would talk. But if word ever got back to the Reverend Josiah Wadson
and the Black Ministry Council, then Pleskoff would lose his
retirement pay. Perhaps even be fired.
If that happened, maybe he could go independent, offer a novel
service of armed men protecting the unarmed. If this idea caught
on, why, people without guns might be able to walk New York City's
streets again. He did not know what this service might be called
but one could always hire an advertising firm. Perhaps
"Pro-tecta-Block." Everyone on a block could chip in to pay for it.
The men might even wear uniforms to distinguish themselves and let
those who might harm people on the block know that there was
protection there. It was a whiz-bang idea, thought Sergeant
Pleskoff, and the good Lord knew New York City could use it.
Outside a schoolyard of concrete, surrounded by a high cyclone
fence, Sergeant Pleskoff saw the dark blue denim jackets of the
Saxon Lords. There were twenty or thirty of them moving along the
fence. He did not have to read the lettering, even if he could on
this dark night. Twenty or thirty dark jackets had to be the denim
of the Saxon Lords. At first, he felt a fear of going on this
street without their permission. Then he remembered he had a gun he
could use. The man who had showed him the FBI Card held the gun for
him. Pleskoff asked to reload.
"Those the Saxon Lords?" asked Remo.
"Yes. My gun," said Pleskoff.
"You use it before I tell you, you'll eat it," Remo said.
"Fair enough," said Pleskoff. His mind was feverish with
possibilities for his unique Protecta-Block. The men protecting
people could carry guns too. Like the one he had. There might even
be a snappy name for these men in uniforms who carried guns and
protected people, thought the New York City policeman, but he
couldn't think of one right then. He filled the chambers of the gun
with bullets.
Chiun watched the American policeman, then the group of young
men. The young men walked with the confident arrogance of bullies.
It was natural for man to herd but when he herded, what he gained
in group strength he lost in individual courage.
"Who you?" demanded the tallest, revealing to Chiun and Remo
that the gang was really disorganized. When the biggest ruled, it
was a sign that physical prowess had to be used to gain leadership,
not cunning or agreement. It was the same, then, as a gathering of
strangers.
"Who am I, you mean," said Remo.
"Who you? Dat what I axed," said the tall one angrily.
"You want to know who I am. And I want to know who you are,"
said Remo.
"Dat mans need mannas," said the tall one.
"Manners, right?" said Remo. That's the word he thought it
was.
"Let me take him," whispered Sergeant Pleskoff to Remo.
"De sergeant, he shoulda tol' you who de Saxon Lawds is, man. Ah
sees de jive turkey, he wif you. We ain' got no street lights
cause'a white oppression and 'trocities against de Tird Worl'
Peoples. I gone be perfesser English when I learns to read. Head
ob de department. Dey gotta has niggas. It's de law. Whole English
'partment, biggest in de worl'. De blacks invent de English, de
whites done rob it from dems. You rip off, honkey."
"I'm not sure what you said but I understood that honkey part,"
Remo said, leveled two right ringers into the tall young man's
navel and, finding the spinal column joint, severed it. There was
hardly a whoosh from the collapsed lungs. The dark form doubled
over, its shaggy head plopping into its pop brand-new sneakers with
the Slam Dunk treads and the Super Soul super-sole of polyester and
rubber. The sneakers had red stars on the insteps. If the tall
young man had still had an operative nervous system, each eye could
have seen at microscopic close distance, right under the instep
star, the legend that the sneakers were made in Taiwan.
The nervous system also failed to pick up the loud metallic
sound of a .45 caliber automatic clacking to the pavement that cool
dark morning. The gun had come from the youth's right hand.
"Wha' happen? Wha', man?" The questions came from the young
Saxon Lords as their leader stood only up to his waist, and then,
in a slow moment, toppled forward in collapse, so that when he came
to rest his legs were neatly pressed on top of him.
"He daid?" came a moaning voice. "De man's do a 'trocity on de
brother."
"Shoot," said another. "I ain't seen nuffin'. Just another jive
honkey with Sergean' Pleskoff. Hey, Pleskoff, wha' that in you
hand?"
"No," said Remo to Sergeant Pleskoff. "Not yet." There were two
other guns of smaller caliber in the gang. Remo removed them, with
stinging pain, from their holders. After the fourth gang member to
fall in pain, the shouts about blood vengeance modified. On the
fifth Afro snapping back like a wild dust mop on a tight spring,
the tenor of the game changed from threats to obeisance, from
master to slave, from macho posturing to "no sirs" and head
scratching, and they were just standing here innocent at four a.m.,
minding their own business. Waitin' to see if some nice white man
should come along so they could help. Yessuh.
"Empty your pockets and put your hands up on that fence," said
Sergeant Pleskoff. He grinned with delirious pleasure. "I wish I
had twenty pair of those things. The kind of things that go on
wrists and lock. The whatchamacallits."
"Handcuffs," said Remo.
"Yeah, right. Handcuffs," Pleskoff said.
Remo asked about the house that had been torn down. Nobody knew
anything about the building. Remo broke a finger. And very quickly
he found out that the building had been in Saxon Lord territories,
the gang had hit the Muellers a few times, the man had been knifed,
but no one here had done the final one on Mrs. Mueller. Lordy, no.
No one here would do anything like that.
"Was it another gang?" asked Remo.
"No," came the answer. Remo broke another finger.
"All right," he said. "Who did Mueller? Who did the old
man?"
There were murmurings over exactly which old white man Remo
meant.
"De one dat cried, begged, and cried not to slam him no more?
Dat white man? Or de one whats bleed de carpets like puddles?"
"The one with the German accent," Remo said.
"Raht. De one dat talks funny," said one.
As near as Remo could determine, there had been two old white
men in that building. The Saxon Lords killed the first because he
wouldn't tell them where his insulin needle was hidden. The second,
seeing that they were about to successfully enter his apartment,
threw himself at them.
A young man grinned at how that seventy-year-old man tried to
fight.
"You were there?" Remo said.
"Ah was. He were funny, dat old man."
"Try a younger one," Remo said and wiped the grin out onto the
sidewalk in little white pellets of teeth and with his right hand
cupped like the top of a juicer, pushed the face into the
schoolyard fence like potatoes through a masher. The head stuck.
The body dangled. The fence quivered and it was established at this
point on 180th Street off Walton Avenue in the Bronx that frail old
white people struggling for life were not humorous matters.
"All right, now we'll try again. Who killed Mrs. Mueller?"
"Idi Amin," said one young man.
"I thought I warned you about joking," Remo said.
"I not joking. Idi Amin, he our leader, he de one you kills ober
dere." He pointed to where the gang's leader lay on the schoolyard
pavement like a closed-up jacknife.
"He did it? Mrs. Mueller?" asked Remo.
"Dat right, boss. He do it."
"Alone? Don't tell me alone. None of you could find your way
down a flight of stairs alone."
"Not alone, mistuh. Big-Big. He do it too."
"Who's Big-Big?" Remo asked.
"Big-Big Pickens. He do it."
"Which one of you is Big-Big Pickens?"
"He not here, suh. He away."
"Away where?"
"He go to Newark. When all de mens comes and starts looking
around de old people's building, Big-Big, he decide go Newark till
it safe to com? back."
"Where in Newark?" Remo said.
"Nobody know. Nobody find no one single nigger in Newark."
Remo nodded to that. He would wait for Big-Big. Sergeant
Pleskoff shined a small penlight on the cement sidewalk. It looked
as if someone had thrown a drugstore at the feet of the teenagers
leaning against the schoolyard fence. Pill bottles, envelopes with
white powder, doodads, and a small shriveled gray lump.
"What's that?" asked Pleskoff.
"A human ear," said Chiun, who had seen what they looked like in
China where bandit kidnapers sent first a finger asking for ransom,
and if the ransom was not paid, sent an ear signifying the
captive's death.
"Whose?" asked Remo.
"Mine," said a boy who could not be over fourteen years old.
"Yours?" asked Remo.
"Yeah. I got it. Offen de subway. It mine." Remo looked at one
side of the boy's head, then the other. Both his ears were
there.
"Ah cuts de ears. Dey mine."
"Enough," yelled Remo, rage surging through him, and he struck
dead center into the black face. But Sinanju was not a way of rage,
but of perfection.
The hand went with the speed of a nerve transmission but the
precision and the rhythm was jarred by the hate. The hand crushed
the skull and dug into the warm wet unused brain, but in piercing
the bone at such speed without the usual rhythm, a bone snapped and
the return of the hand slowed and it came back with blood and
pain.
"Enough," said Chiun. "You have misused Sinanju and now look.
Look at the hand I trained. Look at the body I trained. Look at the
angry furious wounded animal you have become. Like any other white
man."
Hearing that, one of the young blacks yelled, out of reflex:
"Right on."
Chiun, the Master of Sinanju, silenced this rude interruption of
a private conversation. It looked as if the long delicate
fingernails floated ever so slowly at the wide nose but when the
yellow hand touched the black face, it was as if the head had met a
baseball bat at full swing. He dropped and spattered like a fresh
egg being cracked into a hot frying pan.
And Chiun spoke to Remo. "Take one of these boys and I will show
you how futile and childish is your justice. Justice is beyond any
man and but an illusion. Justice? Have you done justice by wasting
awesome talents on these things, obviously of no use to anyone else
and even less use to themselves? What justice? Come."
"The hand doesn't hurt," said Remo. He held his shoulder so that
not even the resonance of his breathing should reach past his wrist
into that most delicate area of explosive pain. He knew his lie was
useless because he himself had been taught where a man pained. It
was visible in the body trying to protect it and his shoulder was
hunched over his right hand so that it hung vertical and still. Oh,
still, please, still, thought Remo, who had believed he had
forgotten pain like this.
"Pick one," said Chiun, and Remo pointed to a form in the
darkness.
So it was here that they left with Tyrone Walker, sixteen, also
known as Alik Al Shaboor, the Hammer, Sweet Tye, and three other
names, none of which, Remo would find out later, Tyrone could spell
the same way twice. Chiun and Remo also parted with Sergeant
Pleskoff who, carried away with his zeal for ending violence on the
streets, at 3:55 a.m. stopped a very tough-looking black man with a
bullet head and shoulders like walls. He was accompanied in a gold
Cadillac by four other blacks. The man made a sudden movement, and
Sergeant Pleskoff unloaded his .38 Special into the head of a
Teaneck orthodontist and the rest of the cars two accountants, a
rustproofmg representative, and the deputy superintendent of the
Weequahic Waterways Commission.
When Pleskoff heard about it on television the next day, he
worried about being discovered. Ballistics might be checked, just
like in Chicago. For shooting five innocent men in a car, a New
York City police officer could be suspended for weeks. But these
were black men. Pleskoff might lose his job entirely.
Tyrone left with the two white men. The yellow man was light
enough to be white anyhow. Tyrone didn't know. He threatened to do
harm to the two, so the white one with the hurt hand slapped him
with the other.
Tyrone stopped threatening. They took him to a hotel room. Oh,
that was the action these two queers wanted. Tyrone was not about
to be raped.
"Fifty dollar," said Tyrone. Otherwise it would be male
rape.
"The old man wants you and he doesn't want you for that," said
the younger white man who had done the 'trocity on the Saxon
Lords.
They asked Tyrone if he were hungry. He sure was. This big hotel
was right off the park in Downtown. It was called the Plaza. It had
big old fancy rooms. It had a real nice-looking eating room
downstairs. Like a Colonel Sanders except people brought the food.
It real good.
Alik Al Shaboor, ne Tyrone Walker, ordered a Pepsi and a
Twinkie.
The white man ordered Tyrone a steak and vegetables. He ordered
plain rice for himself. Why the white man order them things that
Tyrone he doan want?
"Because sugar does you no good," said the white man.
Tyrone, he watch de yellow man run dem long funny fingers over
the hurt finger ob de white man. It sure look funny but de white
man, he just settle down and de finger, it hurt him no
moah. Lahk magic.
The food came. Tyrone ate the bread and the crackers. The white
man, he tell Tyrone to eat everyfin on de plate. Tyrone let de
white man know what he can do wif de plate. De white man, he grab
Tyrone's ear. It hurt, real bad it hurt. Ooooweee. It hurt.
Tyrone real hungry. Tyrone eat it all. But all. Including the
white stringy, thing, that hard to cut.
In a stroke of reason, it dawned on Tyrone that if he rolled the
white stringy thing into balls after cutting it into strips, he
could swallow the white thing more easily.
"Don't eat the napkin, stupid," Remo said.
"Ah," said Chiun. "He does not know your Western ways. And that
is part of my proof that you cannot do justice. Even if he had
killed the old woman whom you did not know, but have taken such
cause for, his death could not bring her back to her life."
"I can make sure the killer doesn't enjoy his."
"But is that justice?" asked Chiun. "I cannot do justice, but
you Remo, many years away from even fifty years, you will do
justice." He nodded to the youth. "I give you this as typical. Its
name is Tyrone. Could you give this justice?"
Tyrone spat out the last strand of napkin. He sure wished the
white man had told him not to eat it right off.
"You," said Chiun. "Talk about yourself, for we must know who
you are."
Since the two men could hurt him physically and they weren't
teachers or cops who didn't mean anything to anyone, Tyrone
answered.
"Ah wants to go find my great ancestor kings, kings of Africa,
Muslim kings."
"You want to trace it back like Heritage?" asked Remo,
referring to a popular book of invention, how a black supposedly
had found the village of his ancestors. If a novel had had that
many factual errors, it would have been questioned, even for
fiction. This one sold as nonfiction, even though it had cotton
being grown in America before it was a crop, it had slaves being
brought directly to America instead of being shipped to the islands
first as was the real manner, and most laughably, it had a black
slave being shipped back to England for training, during a time
when any such slave would have been freed under English law. It was
now a textbook in colleges. Remo had read the book and admired the
writer's persistence. He himself did not know his heritage, who had
been left at an orphanage at birth.
This was one of the reasons that CURE had selected him as its
enforcement arm. No one would miss him. And in truth, he had no one
but Chiun. And yet in Chiun, he had everyone, his own heritage
which now joined with Sinanju, stretched back over thousands of
years. Remo didn't care whether Heritage was true or not.
He wanted it to be true. What harm could it do anyone if the book
were really nonsense? Maybe people needed it.
"Ah knows ah can find the great Muslim king whats my heritage if
ah gets the most difficult part of it. Ah can do it. Ah sho can do
it."
"What's the difficult part?" asked Remo.
"All de Saxon Lawds, we got that first hard part in going back a
hundred years. A thousand years."
"What hard part?" Remo asked again.
"We can get back to the great Muslim kings of Africa, oncet we
gets our fathers. Piggy, he got it closest of all. He know his
father got to be one outta three men. He real close."
Chiun raised a finger. "You will use your mind, creature. And
you will see before you an old white woman. There are two pictures
you will see. One, she closes the door and walks away. The other,
she lies dead at your feet. Still and dead. Now, which is a bad
picture?"
"Closin' de door, dat be bad."
"Why?" said Chiun.
"Cause she gots her money. Other way, she be daid and ah gots
her money."
"Is it not wrong to kill old people?" Chiun asked. He
smiled.
"No. Dey de best. You gets de young men, and dey can kill you.
Ole people, dey de best. No trouble, specially iffen dey
white."
"Thank you," said Chiun. "And you, Remo, would kill this one and
call it justice?"
"You're damned right," said Remo.
"This is not a person talking," said Chiun pointing to the young
black man in the blue denim jacket with Saxon Lords on the back.
"Justice is for persons. But this is not a person. Not even a bad
person. A bad person would do what this one has done, but even a
bad person would know it was wrong to do it. This thing has no idea
that it is wrong to hurt the weak. You cannot do justice to
something less than human. Justice is a human concept."
"I don't know," Remo said.
"He right," said Tyrone, sensing impending release. He had been
through family court thirteen times and he knew freedom when he saw
it.
"Would you kill a giraffe for eating a leaf?" asked Chiun.
"If I were a farmer, I'd sure as hell keep giraffes away from my
trees. I'd probably shoot them," Remo said.
"Perhaps. But do not call it justice. Not justice. You cannot
punish a leaf for reaching to the light and you cannot do justice
to a pear that ripens and falls off a tree. Justice is done to men
who have choices."
"I don't think this thing here should live," said Remo.
"And why not?" Chiun asked.
"Because he's a disaster waiting to happen."
"Perhaps," said Chiun, smiling. "But as I said, you are an
assassin, the strong deadly arm of emperors. You are not the man
who keeps the sewers flowing. That is not your job."
"No suh. You ain' de sewer man. De sewer man. De sewer man. No
suh, you ain' de sewer man." Tyrone popped his fingers to his
little jingle. His body bounced on the expensive gold and white
chair.
Remo looked at the young man. There were many like him. What
difference would one more make?
His right hand was numbed but he knew it had been set with more
skill than any bone surgeon, and he knew it was healing with the
speed of a baby's bone. When your body lived to its maximum, it
used itself more efficiently. The hand would heal but would he
anger again during work? He looked at his hand and at Tyrone.
"Do you understand what we're talking about?" Remo asked
Tyrone.
"Ah doan unnerstan' all dat jive talk."
"Well, jive on this, pal. I think I ought to kill you in return
for the crimes you've committed against the world, the worst of
which was being born. I think that's justice. Now Chiun here thinks
you should live because you're an animal, not a human, and justice
has nothing to do with animals. What do you think?"
"Ah thinks ah better get outta heah."
"Hold that thought, Tyrone," Remo said. "You're going to stay
alive for awhile, while I decide whether I'm right or Chiun's
right."
"Take yo' time. No sense hurrying."
Remo nodded. "Now, some questions. If something was stolen from
an apartment during a killing, where would it wind up?"
Tyrone hesitated.
"You're getting ready to lie, Tyrone," said Remo. "That's what
people do, not animals. Lie and you're people. Be people, and
you're dead, because I'll do justice on you. Understand?"
"Anything what gets stole, it goes to de Revin Wadson."
"What's D. Revin Wadson?" Remo asked.
"Not D. Revin," Tyrone said. "De revin."
"He means the reverend," Chiun said. "I have learned a great
deal about this dialect in the last hour."
"Who is he?" asked Remo.
"He a preacher, a big mucky-muck wit housing and like dat."
"And he's a fence?"
"Evybody gots make a libbin'."
"Chiun, who should be responsible for him?" Remo asked. "Who's
supposed to teach him that thieving and killing and rape and
robbery are wrong?"
"Your society should. All civilized societies do that. They set
standards that people should live up to."
"Like schools, parents, churches?" Remo asked.
Chiun nodded.
"You go to school, Tyrone?" Remo asked.
" 'Course ah goes to school."
"To read and things like that?"
"Ah doan read. Ah ain' gone be no brain surgeon. De brain
surgeons, dey read. You watch dey lips in de subways. Dey readin'
de get-outta-dem signs."
"You know anybody who reads without moving his lips?" Remo
asked.
"Not at Malcolm-King-Lumumba High School. You wants some
smartass honkey, dey reads up at Bronx High."
"There are other people in the world who read without moving
their lips. In fact, most readers don't."
"De Tom blacks. Uncle Tom, Aun' Jemima, dey apin' de whites. Ah
can count to a thousand, wanna hear me?"
"No," said Remo.
"One hundred, two hundred, three hundred, four…"
Remo thought about welding Tyrone's two lips together. Tyrone
stopped counting to a thousand by hundreds. He saw the glint in
Remo's eyes and he wasn't looking for pain.
When the phone rang in their suite upstairs, Remo answered.
Chiun watched Tyrone for here was something new. A creature that
looked human in form but had no humanity in its soul. He would have
to study this one and pass on his wisdom to the next Masters of
Sinanju so those Masters would have one less thing new to
encounter. It was the new things that could destroy you. There was
no greater advantage than familiarity.
"Smitty," said Remo. "I'm close to finding your gadget, I
think."
"Good," came the acid voice. "But there's something bigger out
there. One of our foreign operating agencies picked up something in
Moscow communications. At first we thought Russia was ignorant of
all this, and then we found out they were a bit too cute. They sent
a man, A Colonel Speskaya."
"I don't know every spitting Russian ding dong," said Remo.
"Well, he's a colonel at age twenty-four and they just don't
make people colonels at that age. If that's any help."
"I got enough with my job without keeping up with Russian
administration," Remo said.
Chiun nodded sagely. The most American thing about Americans was
that they tried to change everything, especially when it worked
well enough already. Thus, seeing the beautiful handiwork of the
Master of Sinanju in transforming Remo, they constantly tried to
make Remo, the assassin, into something else. Not that the other
things were unworthy. But anyone with enough effort could become a
detective or a spy. It took special qualities to be an assassin. It
was good to see Remo resisting the obscene blandishments of Smith.
Chiun nodded at Remo, letting him know he was doing the right thing
in resisting Smith's nonsense.
"They sent the colonel," Smith said, "and they did it
beautifully. We thought they weren't interested in the Mueller
device at all, but they were. But now, our intercepts tell us they
found something better. Two instruments that are better and more
important than the Mueller thing."
"So now I'm not just looking for the device that the Mueller
family had, but I'm looking for a Colonel Speskaya and two new
weapons he's got his hands on?"
"Yes. Precisely," said Smith.
"Smitty. This job isn't worth spit." Remo happily hung up the
phone. When it rang again, he tore it out of the socket. When a
bellboy came up to check the phone out of order, Remo gave him
fifty dollars and told him to leave the suite of rooms alone. When
the assistant manager came up and insisted a phone be reinstalled,
Remo allowed as how life was hard and he wanted to get some sleep
and if he were bothered again, he would install the phone in the
assistant manager's face.
The suite was not bothered again that night. Remo locked Tyrone
Walker in the bathroom. With some newspapers on the floor.
CHAPTER SIX
The Reverend Josiah Wadson let his booming voice resonate out
over the auditorium in the Bronx. Outside long lines of moving vans
were parked, their engines stilled, their carriers locked. They had
distant license plates, from Delaware, Ohio, Minnesota, Wyoming,
but each had fresh canvas signs: "Affirmative Housing II, Rev. J.
Wadson, Executive Director."
Inside the auditorium, elderly white people sat listening to the
reverend. Box lunches of fried chicken and rich dripping ribs, with
crusty white bread, had been passed out and they drank milk and
coffee and soft drinks.
"I prefer tea and toast," said one woman with a twang that
crackled with age. She wore a delicate sapphire ring with small
diamond baguettes set in white gold, the sort of tiny delicacy of a
world even older than hers. She smiled and said please, because all
her life she had always said please. She could not remember not
saying it.
Nor would she ever fail to say thank you. It was a just and
proper thing. People should treat each other with respect, which
was why she was here today from Troy, Ohio.
There were good and bad in all races and if whites were needed
so that all men could be equal, then, like her great-grandfather
who fought to end slavery, so would she volunteer herself. And the
government was being very generous. They would pay half her rent
for a year. It was called Affirmative Housing II, and Rebecca Buell
Hotchkiss of Troy, Ohio looked forward to what she had told her
friends was a new challenge.
She was going to meet a whole new world of friends of
different-colored skin. If they were half as nice as Mr. and Mrs.
Jackson, her close black friends in Troy, why then she had just
stumbled into a windfall. When she thought of New York City she
thought of all the shows she could see. All the museums she could
visit.
Why, they had television in New York City on almost all the
channels. And the Botanical Gardens and the Bronx Zoo were within
just a few miles of where she would be living. Her furniture was
outside in one of the vans and here were other nice people from all
over America, going to show that America believed in brotherhood.
What could go wrong? Josiah Wadson was a reverend and he was
directing this lovely people program.
So she asked, with a very big please, for tea and toast. She did
not like ribs and chicken. It was too harsh for her queasy
stomach.
She asked this of one of the nice young men. She thought all the
people she had met were nice. And she refused to believe there was
anything evil about the reverend wearing a pistol. After all, there
were many racists around and as a little girl she knew how hard it
could be on Negro men at that time. Whooops. Black. She would have
to learn that was the nice thing to call them now. Whooops. You did
not refer to blacks as "them." She was learning.
She was surprised when she was refused tea and toast.
"You don' like ribs and chicken 'cause 'you a racist," said the
young man. He looked at her hand the way other young men used to
look at her bosom. It was the hand with the ring her grandmother
had given her.
"I used to love southern food," said Miss Hotchkiss, "but now I
have a queasy stomach."
This small commotion was heard on the stage of the auditorium by
Reverend Wadson. He had his pistol buttoned under his black jacket.
He wanted to know what the trouble was down there. The young man
told him.
"Well, let her have tea and toast. If she wants to deny the rich
black heritage being offered her for her pale white tea and toast,
let her. We on to an enrichment program for whites."
Wadson grinned a big licorice happiness as the auditorium
returned him polite applause.
"De white man, he need to complicate thing. It 'bout time, we
moralize him. We fight complication wif clarity. Evil wif morality.
We give de white oppressor a moral standard he never know."
The whites applauded with alacrity but not with enthusiasm. The
applause came and went like a dutiful blast from a pistol shot.
Loud and short.
"Affirmative Housing Two, it simple. No need to muggy up wif
high-falutiness. It simple as grits. Housin', it segregated.
Segregation, it against de law. All of you be criminals. Till now.
Now, you be paid to follow de law of de land. Law, it say you gotta
live wif nigg… with blacks," and on this note, Reverend
Wadson bellowed into glorious resonance.
"How looong, Oh Lawd, de black man gotta do de integrating? How
long, oh Lawd, de black man he gotta go integrating? No longer,
Lawd. Lawd, ah gots good news for you now. At long last, ah gots
good news for yo' bleedin' heart. Black consciousness and black
pride bring de oppressor 'round to do what legal and right. Whites,
dey gonna do de integrating."
And with a cautionary note to the ruler of the universe that the
whites had to be offered moving money to move into black
neighborhoods, the Reverend Wadson concluded by asking a blessing
on getting whites to do what they should have done from the
beginning.
Affirmative Housing II was quite simply integration of
neighborhoods using whites instead of blacks as the integrators,
and black neighborhoods instead of white ones as the areas to be
integrated. It was an experimental pilot project of Rev. Wadson's
Black Ministry Council, funded by the federal government. There was
six million dollars for the project. Urban economists call the
grant "so little they don't want it to work."
Of the six million dollars, two million went for consulting
fees, one million for the moving, two million for exploratory
research and nine hundred thousand dollars for "outreach, input,
and counterface groupings." The remaining one hundred thousand
dollars went to buy two buildings, the owner of which gave Reverend
Wadson an envelope with forty thousand dollars in it as a sales
commission, sometimes referred to, when indulged in by whites, as a
kickback.
The strategy sessions called workshops were conducted at resorts
in Trinidad, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Cannes, and Paris. There were
floods of consultants and consulting firms at one hundred dollars
per hour. Many of the finest New York City courtesans found
themselves giving advice on interrace counterfaces.
This auditorium was costing American taxpayers forty thousand
dollars in consulting fees. Besides Reverend Wadson, there were
black authorities and consultants sensitizing the white audience.
There was talk on Heritage, which showed blacks were good
and whites were bad and how ignoble whites had ruined noble black
men. The black speaker had written a review of this book and for
five thousand dollars he read his review.
It said he didn't know why the author bothered to give unworthy
whites such a worthy book. He blamed whites for not bringing up
blacks as Muslims. He said he didn't know why he even bothered to
talk to the whites, because nobody else cared for whites. Not in
the whole world.
The author carried a pocketbook and looked like a popeyed toad.
He smoked with a vengeance. Reverend Wadson thanked him and made
the audience thank him.
The program was named Affirmative Housing II because there had
been an Affirmative Housing I. The two million dollars for
consulting fees in this program had shown that Affirmative Housing
I had failed because the whites were inadequately sensitized to
black culture. Now they were being sensitized.
They all watched a film on how bad whites were to blacks in the
South before civil rights.
They watched a dance troupe perform "Revolutionary Black
Vanguard." It showed black revolutionaries killing white oppressors
like priests and nuns.
Miss Hotchkiss saw all this and told herself that perhaps she
had negative feelings because she wasn't sensitive enough.
A poet read about burning white venom wombs with black
righteousness. Burning houses down around whites. Revolution. No
more Jesus. Gimme Marx.
A comedian now calling himself a "conscience activist"
explained how the FBI had acted peculiarly during the assassination
of Martin Luther King. The FBI, said the comedian, had leaked out a
story that the good reverend didn't stay in black hotels. And out
of the goodness of the reverend's heart, when he heard this story,
he moved to a black hotel where he was assassinated. Therefore the
FBI was to blame. The comedian was paid three thousand dollars for
this lecture.
There was a picture of Field Marshal Doctor Idi Amin Dada,
President for Life, on stage and a recording of his voice telling
the audience that he really liked whites and that they shouldn't be
fooled by propaganda from whites.
Then there was the Interview for Afro News television, called
"Like It Really Is," and there was Reverend Wadson's serious face
and sonorous voice.
"We trying, Lawd, we trying, to counteract in this brief
afternoon years of racist propaganda." The female announcer said to
the camera whirring away that everyone agreed it was an uphill
fight to counteract racist propaganda. She said that if Reverend
Wadson were successful in his struggle, then there would be no need
for busing because then America would be integrated. "We all know
the reverend for his good fight against police barbarousness and
atrocities," she said.
Then the whites were ushered out of the auditorium and told to
smile at the cameras. But since Swedish television was late
arriving, the elderly whites were herded again back into the
auditorium. Then they were guided out again, but since there
weren't enough smiles, they were pushed back in and told to come
out again, smiling. A few fainted. Miss Hotchkiss kept going by
holding on to the man in front of her.
Someone yelled for them to smile. She tried to. Young black men
in black leather jackets stood in rows. The tired old people were
marched up to the rows of men and got threats that those who did
not smile would suffer.
Miss Hotchkiss heard words she had never heard before. She tried
smiling. If one were pleasant, if others knew you meant only
pleasantness, then certainly basic human dignity would prevail. An
old man from Des Moines began sobbing.
"It will be all right," said Miss Hotchkiss. "It will be all
right. Remember, all men are brothers. Didn't you hear how moral
blacks are? What do we have to fear from people who are morally
superior? Don't worry," she said but she did not like the way the
young black men eyed her sapphire ring. She would have taken it off
if she could. But it had not been able to slip off since she was
seventeen. She told herself it was such a small ring, scarcely a
few points of a carat. It had come over from England with an
ancestor, who had brought it west through the Erie Canal and down
into the Miami, Ohio valley, where good people had made good land
bountiful.
Her great-grandfather had gone to war and lost a leg to free
blacks from slavery. And the ring was his mother's, given to Miss
Hotchkiss over the passage of time. It was important, because it
tied her to her past. Yet now the woman, rich in years but poor in
the youthful sap that made climbing into a bus a simple procedure,
would very much have wanted to have left that ring with her
sister's child. She felt the ring endangered her life.
She was relieved to see a man with a collar get on the bus. He
had a round jovial face. He said he wanted everyone to hear his
version of the Good Samaritan.
"A man was walking along the road when another man jumped on him
and robbed him of everything and then demanded to know why he was
poor," said the man with the collar. Miss Hotchkiss was confused.
She remembered the Good Samaritan as helping someone. She didn't
understand.
"I see you're confused. You are the robbers. And the Third World
has been robbed by you. Whites have made the Third World oppressed,
poor by robbing them."
A man with silver hair raised a hand. He was an economics
teacher, he said. He had been teaching thirty years and was
retired. He said that while there were faults with colonization, it
was a fact that it did raise the life expectancy of the native
population.
"Poverty and starvation in the Third World is really just
slightly better than it's always been. They are living the life of
preindustrialized man. Nobody stole anything from them. They never
had it. Wealth is an invention of the industrial society."
"What about natural resources?" yelled the man with the collar.
"That's stealing on a massive scale. Robbing the inalienable right
to a resource."
"Actually, no," said the white-haired economics teacher,
patiently, as if explaining dry underwear to a bedwetter. "What
you're talking about are colored stones and things in the ground
that preindustrialized man has no use for anyhow. Industrialized
man not only pays him for it, but pays him to use his labor in
mining it or drilling for it. The problem is that preindustrialized
man has been exposed to the richer life of industrialized man and
naturally he wants it. But he's got to work at it. The fact is
nobody stole anything from anybody."
"Racist," screamed the man in the collar. "You're not allowed to
believe things like that. Out of the program."
"Fine. I just don't want this anyway. I found out I don't like
you people. I don't trust you people and I don't want anything to
do with you people," said the white-haired man, his voice
quivering.
"Get out," screamed the man with the collar and since the
television cameras had gone and would not record the moment, the
man was allowed to get off the bus, with veiled hints about his
never being able to recover his furniture again. Miss Hotchkiss
wanted to go with him. But there was the cherrywood cabinet that
Aunt Mary had given her and that table that had come up with the
family along the Erie Canal. It would be all right. She knew so
many nice Negro people in Troy, Ohio.
Had she given up the family furniture, Miss Hotchkiss might have
spared herself a death of horror. She was going to lose the
furniture anyway. The world was going to lose that furniture. The
economics teacher, with a wisdom people often get in the valley of
death, realized that there was a chance to get new furniture only
if he were alive.
In a program where it was mandatory to blame all whites for
everything and forbidden to blame any black for anything, he knew
the whites were becoming the new Jews for the new black Nazis.
He willingly gave up his entire wallet and emptied his pockets
at the door of the bus to a young black man. Did the young man want
his buttons? He could have them too.
Later, the New York City police would blame the disaster of
Affirmative Housing II on the late start of the buses toward the
multiracial living environments, which meant the two slum buildings
the program owned.
The buses and the vans got there at dark. The drivers of the
vans, later to be blamed by the mayor for cowardice, fled in a
group as night descended. The bus drivers hailed gypsy cabs.
And the white settlers were left in the buses parked in front of
the vans. A young black boy found he could jimmy open the side of
one of the buses. Gangs of black youths swarmed aboard and dragged
the elderly whites out of the buses. Some had to regrab because old
people's hair came out so easily. Miss Hotchkiss clung to one of
the metal legs of the seats welded to the floor.
But she could not hold when the boot stamped down on her wrist,
crushing old and fragile bone. The pain was young and new and she
shrieked, but hardly anyone heard her screams for mercy because
everyone was screaming.
She felt her right hand with the ring being lifted up and felt
herself thrown around as several young black men fought for
her.
Someone had gotten into the vans and was throwing the furniture
onto a giant bonfire of flame that roared almost as high as the
tenements around her. She felt a sharp tearing at her ring finger
and knew the finger was no longer there. She felt herself being
lifted up and the flames enveloped her, very yellow and burning
hot, so that there was a sudden blasting pain, and then,
surprisingly, nothing.
One black woman in a third-story apartment dialed 911, Police
Emergency.
"Get down here. Get down here. They're burning people. They're
burning people at Walton and 173rd."
"How many people are being burned?" asked the policeman.
"I don' know. A dozen. Two dozen. Oh, God. It terrible."
"Lady, we'll get down as soon as we can. We're understaffed.
We've got bigger disasters ahead of you."
"Dey burning' whites. Now will you get somebody down heah? Dey
got de Saxon Lawds, de Stone Shieks of Allah, all de gangs. It
horrible. Dey burning people."
"Thank you for reporting," came the voice and the phone clicked
off. The black women drew the curtains and cried. There were times
as a child in Orangeburg, South Carolina, when she couldn't go out
in the street safely because she was black. And that was bad. There
was no great joy in coming north, but there had been hope.
Now, just when the greatest hopes were being achieved, she
couldn't walk out in the streets except in the early morning. And
she did not relish the screams of whites any more than of
blacks.
She just thought that people ought to be left alone with a bit
of dignity, and if not dignity, at least a little safety. But she
didn't even have that. She opened an old family bible and she read
and she prayed for everyone. Someone had said there was a
lot of money spent fighting poverty. Well, she was poor and she
didn't see any of it. Someone said there was a lot of money spent
fighting racism. Well, if she were white and she were bused into
some of the trash that made her life miserable, she certainly
wasn't going to hate blacks less.
Now, if someone wanted to fight racism, they ought to have
decent whites meet decent, God-fearing black people. There was
nothing like decent people meeting decent people. When the screams
penetrated her room, she went into the bathroom. And when she could
still hear the screams of people being burned alive, she shut the
bathroom door and let the water run. And there she prayed.
Reverend Wadson prayed too. He prayed for a softening of white
hearts. He did this from a podium in a ballroom of the
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, rented by Affirmative Housing II, as an
antiracism workshop. To help fight racism, there was a ten-piece
band, three rock singers, and an open bar.
Television cameras focused on Reverend Wadson's massive
perspiring rutty face over the white collar. The eyes rolled and
the lips glistened under the ballroom lights. His nostrils flared
wide enough and round enough to hide a pair of giant immies in his
nose. Reverend Wadson was like a freight train, at first punching
out single thoughts at a slow steady pace and then rising in pitch
and speed. And what he said was that America was abandoning its
fight against oppression. But there was a way the fight could be
continued. How? Quite logically. By funding Affirmative Housing
III, with meaningful amounts of money.
"When de man, he lay down six million to solve three hundred
year of oppression, he sayin' ah doan wan' innegration to succeed.
No, suh. He sayin' in his six million ways, niggah, you go starve.
But de Third World, it know de man. It know he immoral. It'know de
rich black contribution to de world ain' gonna be ripped off by de
white man."
"So you're saying that the federal government's program is so
badly funded as to border on fraud," said the Swedish television
announcer, her hair as cool yellow as pale wheat stalks, her skin
the white smooth cream of the North people, her teeth even and
unravaged by cavity or brace. A shimmering black silk pants suit
highlighted full and ready breasts and driving derriere. Even while
she stood still, the black silk moved up and down her leg. Her
perfume enveloped Reverend Wadson.
"Dat exactly what I been sayin','' Wadson said.
"You have been so helpful, Reverend, to Swedish television," the
blond said. "I wish we could have more of your time."
"Who say you can't?" asked the reverend. He was a big man, at
least six-feet-four and he seemed to throw his whole body into her
face.
"Don't you have a lecture tonight on the beauty of black women?"
she asked. Reverend Wadson took twenty seconds to mouth the letters
on the name tag pinned to the beautiful rising black silk covering
what must be a mountain of white breast.
"Ingrid," he said, looking up to make sure by watching her face
that he had said it correctly. "Ingrid, I think sisterhood
powerful. Powerful. Powerful. I with you in sisterhood."
A black woman in stylish but hard-lined dashiki with elegant
barren copper jewelry around her long ebony neck and with short
hair in black rows, tugged at the sleeve of Reverend Wadson.
"Reverend, your lecture. Remember, you're a consultant to the
city on race relations."
"I busy," said Wadson and smiled at the blond.
"But you are part of the program. You are a consultant to the
city," said the black woman.
"Later," said Reverend Wadson.
"But your lecture is about the city's fight against racism,''
said the woman. She smiled politely but firmly at the Swedish
television announcer.
"Later, I said. We workin' international now," said Reverend
Wadson who placed a large hand on the silk-covered shoulder of
Ingrid. Ingrid smiled. Reverend Wadson saw her breasts peak under
the black silk. She wasn't wearing a bra.
"Reverend," said the black woman, her lips pursing. "There are
many people who want to hear you talk on beauty and black being
synonymous."
"Synonymous? Ah never calls it synonymous. Never. Black beauty
your basic beauty. It ain' synonymous. Too long, oh Lawd, has our
beautiful black beauties been called synonymous by white racists.
Ingrid, we gots get outta here and talk about racism and
beauty."
"Synonymous means 'the same as,"" said the black woman. "Black
is the same as beauty, beauty is black. Black is beauty."
"Right on," said Reverend Wadson, turning his back on the woman
and guiding Ingrid into his path.
"Reverend, New York City pays you forty-nine thousand dollars a
year for your lectures," said the woman tugging the back of
Wadson's dark ministerial coat.
"I busy, woman," said Reverend Wadson.
"Reverend, I'm not letting you go," said the woman.
"I be back, Ingrid. Doan you go nowhere, heah?"
"I will be here," said the Swedish beauty and gave Wadson a big
wink. The reverend went into an administrative room of the hotel to
talk to the black woman who was helping him in his lecture series
to colleges in the city.
"This only take a minute," said Reverend Wadson who had played
tight end for a black college in the south and was known to be able
to unfoot someone with one swipe. He slammed the black woman's head
against the wall. She dropped like a sack of soggy week-old
collards.
Wadson returned to Ingrid. A group of young blacks had gathered
around her. With bulk strength, Reverend Wadson cleared them away.
And still chuckling, he brought Ingrid to a conference room where
he finally got his hands on the black silk and undraped it away
from the soft white body that he covered with his anxious tongue.
And just before his triumph, she wriggled away and he lunged for
her. But she was too fast. She claimed he really didn't want
her.
Want her? Was that a droop of disinterest, Wadson wanted to
know?
She consented but only after he promised his help.
"Sho. Anyfing," panted the Reverend Wadson. "First dis."
Ingrid smiled her perfect smooth-skinned smile. Reverend Wadson
thought at that moment she needed no skin lighteners. Never a
lotion on that face.
She asked to kiss him.
He allowed as that would be all right.
Down went the zipper of his trousers. Ingrid reached up and
brought her long hair behind her head in two handfuls.
Reverend Wadson lunged forward, body and desire out of
control.
Suddenly Ingrid pulled back.
"Drop your gun, Reverend," she said and gone was the lilt of
Sweden from her voice.
"Hah?" Wadson said.
"Drop that gun you're carrying," she repeated. "A gorilla with a
gun is dangerous."
"Bitch," said the reverend and was about to bang her yellow head
into the furniture when he felt a tingle around a very delicate
part of his body. It was as if she had slipped a ring on it.
"Oh, my Lawd," said the reverend, looking down in horror. For
there was a ring down there, a white metal band, but
surrounding the band was his own blood, a thin line. His desire
disappeared like a yoyo coming back to the hand that launched it,
but the white metal ring closed down to the size of his diminishing
desire. And the blood was still there.
"Don't worry, Reverend, that's just a little blood. Do you want
to see more?"
And then there was pain in that most delicate place. Reverend
Wadson looked down in horror at the growing red drippings.
He grabbed the ring but could not tug it off without tearing his
flesh.
"Ah kill you," bellowed the massive man.
"And you lose it, sweety," said Ingrid and she held up a little
black box the size of a box of restaurant souvenir matches. It had
a small red plastic toggle switch set in the center. She moved the
switch forward and the pain in his groin eased. She moved it back
and it felt as if someone were sticking pins in a circle around his
organ.
"Close up your pants, Reverend. We're going out."
"S'right. Ah gots speech to make. Yessuh, black is beauty. De
mos' beautiful. Got to get on wif it right now. Racism, it doan
sleep. No suh. Black, it you basic beauty."
"Can the crap, Reverend. You're coming with me."
"Ah's bleeding," wailed Wadson.
"Don't worry. You'll live."
Wadson's big brown eyes looked at the blond woman with
distrust.
"C'mon, I didn't go to this trouble to mug you, Reverend."
Reverend Wadson stuffed a used Kleenex around the metallic ring
that bound him like a slave. He hoped that it might loosen and with
a jerk he could get it off. But it did not loosen and he realized
that the little box she held was stronger than a gun. There was
some sort of radio wave the box operated on that made the ring
smaller or larger. If he were to get a wall between him and that
thing, why, the ring might slip off easily.
"If radio contact is broken," said the blond, "you lose
everything. The ring closes for good and goodbye your preaching
instrument."
Reverend Wadson smiled and handed over his pearl-handled
revolver, handle first. He made sure he was always near her as they
left the hotel. But not too close. Whenever his big brown hammy
paws got near the instrument Ingrid carried, he felt a stinging
pain in a most painful place.
They got into Ingrid's car. She drove and told him to get into
the back seat where he sat with his hands hovering over his groin.
It dawned on him that this was the first waking moment of his adult
life that he was with a beautiful woman without organizing some
program to get himself into her pants.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The building was only three blocks from Macy's in the center of
Manhattan but when Macy's and Gimbel's rang their closing bells,
the whole area cleared out as if it were a blackboard and God had
wiped the wet eraser of night over it.
Reverend Wadson slumped deeper into the back seat of the car as
it pulled to a stop in front of an old lime-stained brick building
that looked like a hiring hall for rats. He looked cautiously out
his side window, then craned his neck to look behind the car.
"Ah doan laks dis place," he said. "This neighborhood not safe
dis time of night."
"I'll protect you, Porkchop," Ingrid said.
"Ain' got my piece," said Wadson. "Ain' nobody got no right make
somebody go into some place like dis without him got a piece to
protects him."
"Like those old white people you turned loose in that jungle
tonight? That got burned alive?"
"Weren't my fault," Reverend Wadson said. If he could just get
her talking, maybe he could get his hands on that little black box
she kept pressed between her legs as she drove. "Dey volunteers.
Dey volunteer to make up fo' centuries of white oppression."
Ingrid carefully took off her driving gloves. She seemed in no
hurry to leave the car, as if she were waiting for a signal. Wadson
moved up slightly on the edge of the seat. One big hand around her
neck and her own hands would probably fly up to her throat to save
herself. Then he could pluck that little black box from between her
legs. But carefully. Carefully.
"They were poor old people who didn't know any better," Ingrid
said. "They believed all that bilge that they heard from fakers
like you and others just like you. You should have protected
them."
"Not my job to give dem protection. Gubbermint not give me
'nough money to give de protection. Gubbermint cheat de black man
again and now try to blame dat accident on the black man. Oh, when
will it end, dis oppression?" he moaned.
"The strong have an obligation to protect the weak," said
Ingrid. "In the old colonies of the western world, that used to be
called the white man's burden. Nowadays, in these jungles…"
she paused and started to turn toward him "… it's the jungle
bunny's burden."
Wadson had almost reached the edge of his seat when Ingrid
turned and gave him a full bright smile of perfect pearlescent
teeth. "You move another inch toward me, darkie, and you're going
to be singing soprano for the rest of your life."
Reverend Wadson slumped back in the corner of the seat
again.
"Ah still doan lak dis place," he said.
"If we're attacked by a marauding band, you can give them all
your all-inen-are-brothers sermon. That should raise their
consciousness. Assuming they have any."
She seemed satisfied that Wadson had given up any aggressive
plans, so she turned back and continued looking out the front
window. Just to remind him, she touched the red toggle switch atop
the black box.
"All right, all right," Wadson said hurriedly then groaned in
relief as the pressure was relieved slightly.
The pain was bearable but it was always there. Wadson didn't
trust that Ingrid not to mess with that switch so he sat still.
Very still. His day would come. One day, he'd get her and she
wouldn't have that little black box and he would have his gun and
he would do his number on her and then when he was all done, he
would turn her over to the Saxon Lords for a toy and they would
teach her not to mess with the black man, not to subjugate him and
his nobility to her own…
Someone was coming down the street. Three men moved along toward
them. Black men. Young black men with big floppy hats and platform
shoes and skin-tight trousers. Was that who she was waiting
for?
The three men stopped ten feet from the car, peering through the
windshield. One bent closer for a better look, saw Ingrid's white
blond hair, and pointed toward her. The other two bent over for a
better look. They smiled, bright sunshine smiles in their midnight
faces. Hitching up their trousers, they sauntered over to the
car.
Go 'way, Reverend Wadson thought. Go 'way, we don' want no
trouble wif you. But he said nothing.
The biggest of the three young men, who looked to be eighteen
years old, tapped on the window near Ingrid's left ear.
She looked at him coolly, then rolled the window down two
inches.
"Yes?"
"You lost, lady? We help you if you is lost,"
"I'm not lost, thank you."
"Then why you waiting here? Hah. Why you here?"
"I like it here."
"You waiting for a man, you doan have to waits no mo'. Now you
go ts three mens."
"Wonderful," Ingrid said. "Why don't we all make a date to meet
sometime at the monkey house at the zoo?"
"Doan have to wait for no dates to meet wif us. We heah now and
we ready for you." He turned to his two companions. "Ain' we ready
for her?"
One nodded. The other said, "Oooooh, is we ever?"
"It's been nice talking to you boys. Good night," Ingrid
said.
"Wait a minute. Ain' no boys you talking to. No boys. We's men.
Where you getting that boys? You doan go doing no boying around
heah. We's men. You want to see how big mens we is, we shows
you."
He reached down to unzip his fly.
"Take it out and I'll take it off," Ingrid said.
"Take it out," said one of the other youths.
"Yeah. Take it out," said the other. "She 'fraid your black
power. Show her your tower of power."
The first youth was confused now. He looked at Ingrid.
"Yo wanna see it?"
"No," she said. "I want your lips. I want your big beautiful
lips to kiss."
The boy swelled up and smirked at his two friends. "Well,
little foxy lady, ain' no trouble wiffen dat dere." He bent over
and put his face toward the car. He puckered his lips in the
two-inch opening at the top of the window.
Ingrid stuck Reverend Wadson's pearl-handled revolver into the
big open mouth.
"Here, Sambo, suck on this for a while."
The young black man recoiled. "Sheeit," he said.
"Nice to meet you. My name's Ingrid."
"Dis bitch crazy," said the man, wiping the taste of the gun
barrel from his mouth.
"This what?" Ingrid asked, pointing the barrel of the gun at the
man's stomach.
"Ah sorry. Lady. Come on, boys, we go now. Yes'm, we go
now."
"Have a nice day, nigger," Ingrid said.
She pointed the gun at him again as he moved back a step.
"Yes'm," he said. "Yes'm." He put an arm around the shoulder of
one of his friends and moved quickly away from the car, careful to
make sure that his friend was between him and the gun barrel.
Ingrid rolled up the window. Reverend Wadson breathed again.
They had never seen him, hidden in the dark corner of the rear
seat. Ingrid seemed content not to talk and Wadson decided not to
try to get her to change her mind.
They waited in silence another ten minutes before Ingrid said,
"All right. We can go up now." As Reverend Wadson got out of the
car, she said, "Lock it up. Your friends may come back and eat the
seats if you don't." She waited, then nodded to Wadson to lead the
way down the street. She followed, her fingers on the red toggle
switch of the little black box.
"Up here," she ordered as they passed in front of a three-story
stone tenement. Wadson led the way up to the top floor. There was
only one door on the floor and Ingrid pushed Wadson through it,
into a large, spartan apartment where Tony Spesk, ne Colonel
Speskaya, sat on a brown flowered sofa, reading Commentary
Magazine with a thin smile on his pale face.
He nodded to Ingrid as she entered, and told Wadson to sit down
in the chair facing the couch.
"You are here, Reverend Wadson, because we need your
services."
"Who you?" Wadson asked.
Spesk grinned, a large wide smile. "We are the people who
control your life. That's all you need to know."
With a sudden flash of inspiration, Wadson asked, "You communists?"
"You might say that," said Spesk.
"Ah communist too," said Wadson.
"Oh, really?"
"Yeah. Ah believes in share and share alike. Equality. Nobody
being rich ober de bodies ob de poor. Ah believes in dat."
"How droll," said Spesk. He stood up from the couch, carefully
placing the magazine on one of the arms. "And what is your
viewpoint of the Hegelian dichotomy?"
"Hah?" said Reverend Wadson.
"What do you think of the revolt of the sailors at Kronstadt?"
Spesk asked. "The Menshevik heresy?"
"Hah?"
"Of course, you support the labor theory of value as modified by
the research of Belchov?"
"Hah?"
"I hope, Reverend Wadson," Spesk said, "that you live to see the
Communist victory. Because two days later, you'll be in a field
picking cotton. Ingrid, call and make sure our other visitor is on
his way."
Ingrid nodded and went from the large living room into a smaller
room, closing the door behind her. Wadson noticed that she had
placed the small black box on the arm of the couch near Spesk. His
chance at last. An opening.
When the door had closed behind Ingrid, he smiled at Spesk.
"That one bad woman."
"Oh?" said Spesk.
"Yeah. She a racist. She hate black men. She committing a
'trocity on me."
"Too bad, Wadson. Next to me, she looks like Albert
Schweitzer."
His eyes had a strange hard glint in them and while Reverend
Wadson didn't know who Albert Schweitzer was, because he didn't pay
too much attention to the comings and goings of Jews, he decided
Spesk's comment pretty well sealed off the prospect of a
counter-conspiracy against Ingrid. And the black box was still too
far away.
"Listen, Mister…"
"Spesk. Tony Spesk."
"Well, listen Mr. Spesk, she got dis ring on me and it hurts.
You fixing to let me loose?"
"A day or two if you behave yourself. Never, if you cause me any
trouble."
"I causes you no trouble," Wadson said. "I be the least
troubling man you ever likely to find."
"Good, because I need you for something. Sit on the floor and
listen."
Wadson moved off the chair and lowered
himself to the floor, carefully, as if he had raw eggs in his back
pockets.
"There is a white man. He travels with an old Oriental. I want
them."
"You gots dem. Where is they?"
"I don't know. I saw them down in your neighborhood. Near the
house where that old woman, Mrs. Mueller, was killed."
Mrs. Mueller? Mrs. Mueller? That was the old woman the
government was so interested in. They had been looking for
something. And whatever it was Wadson had it. Her apartment had
yielded only junk, but there was a strange-looking device that the
Saxon Lords had brought Wadson to try to fence.
"I gots something better dan any white man and chink," Wadson
said.
"What is that?"
"Dey was dis thing that the Missus Mueller had and the
government, it was lookin' for."
"Yes."
"I got de ting."
"What is it?" Spesk said.
"Ah doan know. It some kind of ting that goes tick and tick, but
ah doan knows what it's for."
"Where do you have it?"
"You takes de ring off, I tell you." Wadson tried a large
friendly smile.
"You don't tell me and I'm going to take part of you off." Spesk
reached out and lifted the small black box.
"Hold it, hold it, hold it raht theah. I got the dee-vice. I got
it at my 'partment."
"Good. I want it. But more than that, I want the white man and
the Oriental."
"I find dem. I get dem for you. What you want dem for?"
"They're weapons. Never mind. You wouldn't understand."
"You gonna take de ring off?"
"When you perform."
Wadson nodded glumly. Spesk took several steps back to the
couch. He was limping heavily.
"What happen to you leg?"
"That's what I want to see the white man about," Spesk said.
"What white man?"
"What have we been talking about? The white man and the
Oriental."
"Oh, dat white man."
Spesk looked up as Ingrid returned.
"I just saw his car. He's on his way up," she said.
"Fine. You know what to do."
Though the wood parquet floor was hard under Reverend Wadson's
butt he didn't think it would be wise to move. That black box was
still too close to Spesk's hand. He sat still as Ingrid went back
into the other room and came out with another black box. She gave
it to Spesk. She was also carrying a hoop, a round white ring of
metal, the size of a hoop from a child's ring-toss game.
Spesk held the black box in his hands and nodded to Ingrid who
walked to the door of the apartment and stood behind the door.
A few seconds later, the door opened, and a small man with a
graying crew cut splashed into the room. He came at top speed as if
he had just remembered where he had misplaced his wallet. He looked
up and saw Spesk and smiled.
The man paused a moment, as if psychically recharging himself
for another frenzied bolt across the floor toward Spesk, when
Ingrid stepped from behind the door and with one quick practiced
motion opened the white ring and snapped it around the man's
neck.
The man recoiled and spun toward her, his right hand slipping
immediately into the jacket of his plaid sports jacket.
"Breslau," Spesk said. His voice, uttering one word, was a harsh
command demanding obedience. Breslau turned. He put his hands to
the ring on his neck and tried to pull it off. When it did not come
loose, he looked at Spesk and his smile was gone. His face was all
questions.
"Leave that alone and come here," Spesk said.
The small man looked at Ingrid once more as if filing her
perfidy for a future accounting date, then came toward Spesk. He
finally saw Reverend Wadson on the floor and looked at him, unsure
whether to smile in welcome or to sneer in victory. Instead he
just looked blankly at Wadson, and then again at Spesk.
"Colonel Speskaya," Breslau said. "I heard you were in the city.
I could not wait to talk to you." His hands again went to the ring
at his neck. "But what is this? Most strange." He smiled at Spesk
as if they alone in the world shared a secret knowledge of the
earth's grossest stupidities.
He glanced at Wadson to see if the black man had a similar ring
around his neck. Wadson wanted to shout, "Honkey, I gots one worse
than that."
"Breslau," Spesk said coldly. "You know a house on Walton
Avenue?"
The small smile of secret sharing left Breslau's face but only
for an instant before he recovered. "But of course, Colonel. That
is why I was most anxious to see you. To discuss this with
you."
"And that is why you and your superiors saw fit not to notify us
of what you were doing and what you were looking for?"
"It might have been a fruitless search," Breslau said. "It was,
in fact. I would not want to bother you with trivia."
Spesk looked down at the small black box in his hands.
"I will give you some trivia," he said. "You did not notify us
because your agency was freelancing again and trying to capture
this device for yourself. East Germany has always had such
ambitions." He raised a hand to silence Breslau's protest. "You
were awkward and inept. There would have been ways to move into
that building, to search for something of value. We could simply
have bought the building through a front. But, no, that would have
been too simple. So you had to blunder around and finally bring in
the American CIA and the American FBI and they took the operation away from you."
Breslau did not know yet if it was the right time to protest.
His face seemed frozen.
"Ineptitude is bad enough," Spesk said. "Ineptitude that results
in failure is even worse. It is intolerable. You may speak
now."
"You are right, Comrade. We should have advised you earlier. But
as I say, the device was only a rumor among some of those in the
German Democratic Republic who were active during the war. It could
well have been only a figment of someone's imagination. As in fact
it was. There is no such device."
"Wrong. There is."
"There is?" Breslau's suprise had overtones of sadness.
"Yes. This creature has it. He is going to give it to me."
Breslau looked at Wadson again. "Well, that's wonderful.
Marvelous."
"Isn't it?" Spesk said drily, rejecting the partnership that
Breslau had tried to construct with his tone of voice.
"And this device, is it of value? Will we be able to use it in
the future in the battle against the imperialists?"
"I have not seen it," Spesk said. "But it is a device. There are
devices and devices." Finally Wadson saw him smile. "Like the thing
around your neck."
"Is this it?" Breslau said. His hands went to the ring around
his throat.
"No. That is something new we have just invented. I will show
you how it works."
As Wadson watched, Spesk pushed forward the red toggle switch
on the small black box. Breslau gagged. His eyes bulged.
"Aaaaggghhh." His hands clawed at the ring.
"You are being removed, Comrade," said Spesk, "not because you
have been deceitful but because you have been caught at it. Too
bad."
He pushed the switch forward farther, a mere fraction of an
inch. Breslau dropped to his knees. His fingertips dug into his
neck in an effort to make room for his fingers behind the
tightening white ring. Where his fingernails dug, they left trails
of blood on his throat as they gouged out skin and flesh. Wadson
felt a sympathetic pain in his groin.
Breslau's mouth opened. His eyes bulged out farther, like a man
who spent a year on a diet of thyroid extract.
"Enjoy, enjoy," Spesk said. He pushed the switch all the way
forward. There was a crack that sounded like a wooden pencil being
broken. Breslau fell face forward onto the floor with a final hiss
of air from his lungs, that turned into a small red bubbly froth
leaking out of the corner of his mouth. His eyes stared at Reverend
Wadson and already, the black man could see them begin to haze
over.
Wadson grimaced.
"You," Spesk said. He put down the one black box and picked up
the other. "You know now what I want you to do."
"Yassuh," said Wadson.
"Repeat it."
"Yo' wants me to find dis white man and dis yellow man and den
brings dem here." He rolled his eyes, and smiled a big pancake.
"Dat it, boss?"
"Yes. There will be no mistakes?"
"No 'stakes. Nossuh, Missah Tony."
"Good. You may leave now. Ingrid will go with you to keep an eye
on you and to examine this device that came from the Mueller
apartment. I warn you. Do not be foolish and try to attack Ingrid.
She is a very good agent."
Wadson got to his feet slowly and quietly, lest a heavily placed
heel infuriate Spesk and he begin playing with that red toggle
switch. The reverend turned to look for Ingrid. She was standing
behind him, looking down at the dead body of East German agent
Breslau.
And her nipples were hard again, Wadson noticed. And he wished
they weren't.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Two bath towels were bunched up at one end of the tub but the
newspapers Remo had spread on the floor were still dry and he felt
like patting Tyrone's head when he unlocked the bathroom doof and
let him out.
Tyrone ran immediately for the front door of the hotel suite.
His hand was on the doorknob when he felt himself being jerked
backward, up into the air, and plummeting down onto a couch which
exhaled air with an asthmatic whoosh when Tyrone's 147 pounds
landed on it.
"What's the big hurry?" Remo said.
"Ah wants get outta here."
"You see," Chiun said, standing near the window and looking out
toward Central Park. "He wants. Therefore it must be done now.
Instant gratification. How typical of the young."
"Except for the way it's piled, this garbage isn't typical of
anything, Little Father."
"Yo' better lets me go now. Ah gotta go," Tyrone said. "Ah wants
to be leavin'."
"You wants, you wants," Remo said. "What do you deserveses?"
"Ah gots go school."
"School? You?"
"Assright. And ah gots go or ah gets in trouble and yo' be in
trouble 'cause it's de law dat ah go school."
"Little Father," Remo asked, "what could they teach this thing
in school? They've had him most of his life already and they still
haven't been able to teach him English."
"Maybe it is an intelligent school system," Chiun said, "and
devotes no time to the study of inferior languages."
"No," said Remo. "I can't believe that."
"Dey teach me," said Tyrone, "and ah learns. Ah speaks street
English. Dat de real English before it be robbed by de white man
who ruin it when he steal it from de black man."
"Where'd you hear that drivel?" Remo asked.
"Ah hears it in de school. Dey have dis man who write de book
and he tell us that we talk real fine and everybody else, dey be
wrong. He say we speak de real English."
"Listen to this, Chiun. You don't have to like English but it's
my language. It's a shame to hear this done to it." Remo turned to
Tyrone again. "This man who wrote that book about your English. Is
he in your school?"
"Yeah. He de guidance counsellor at Malcolm-King-Lumumba. He one
smart muvver."
"Remember what I told you last night?" Remo asked.
" 'Bout killing me?"
Remo nodded. "I haven't made up my mind yet. If I find out
you're responsible for you, then you're going to vanish without
leaving a spot. But if it's not your fault, then, well maybe, just
maybe, you'll live. Come on. We're going to talk to your guidance
counselor. On your feet, Tyrone."
"Those are the things at the ends of your legs," Chiun said.
The Malcolm-King-Lumumba School had cost nineteen million
dollars when it had been built five years earlier. The building
covered one square block, and the interior of the building
surrounded a central court of walkways, picnic tables, and outdoor
basketball backboards.
When the city had first designed the building, the nationally
famous architect had called for a minimum of glasswork along the
four exterior sides of the building. This would be compensated by
window walls on the inside of the building, bordering the
courtyard.
The community school board had attacked the plans as racist
attempts to hide away black children. A public relations firm hired
by the school board mounted a campaign whose theme was "What do
they have to hide?" and "Bring the schools out into the light" and
"Don't send our children back to the cave."
The New York City central school board surrendered to community
pressure in forty-eight hours. The school's plans were redrawn. The
inside of the school building still had floor-to-ceiling windows,
but the perimeter of Malcolm-King-Lumumba was changed from mostly
stone to mostly glass.
The first year, the cost of replacing broken glass caused by
passing rock tossers was $140,000; the second year, new glass cost
$231,000. In four years, the cost of windows for
Malcolm-King-Lumumba exceeded one million dollars.
In the fifth year, two important things happened. The city faced
a budget crunch in the schools. When the budget cut hit Lumumba
High, the president of the community school board knew just where
to cut expenses, because of the second important thing: his
brother, having been made almost a millionaire by four years of
supplying windows to the school, sold his glass business and opened
a lumberyard.
Lumumba High stopped replacing glass. They boarded up all the
big window openings around the four outside walls of the school
with plywood. The first year's cost was $63,000.
Lumumba High was now sealed off from the outside world by a wall
of stone and exterior-grade Douglas fir plywood through which not
light or air or learning could penetrate.
When a member of the community school board protested about the
plywood and the resultant lack of light and asked a meeting "What
are they trying to hide?" and to "Let our children out of the
dark," he was beaten up on his way home after the meeting. There
had been no protests since that time.
When the architect who had originally designed the school drove
up one day to look at it, he sat in his car for an hour
weeping.
Remo deposited Tyrone Walker inside the main corridor of
Malcolm-King-Lumumba School.
"Now you go to your classes," Remo said.
Tyrone nodded but looked toward the front door where a pale
knife-edge of sunlight slipped in alongside one of the plywood
panels.
"No, Tyrone," said Remo. "You go to your classes. If you don't
and you try to get away, I'll come and find you. And you won't like
that."
Tyrone nodded again, glumly. He swallowed with a gulp as if
trying to devour a swollen gland in his throat.
"And don't you leave here without me," Remo said.
"What yo do?"
"I'm going to talk to some of the people here and see if it's
your fault or theirs that you are what you are."
"All right, all right," said Tyrone. "Anyways, dis nice day to
be in school. We gots de reading today."
"You study reading? I thought you didn't." Remo was
impressed.
"Well, not dat honkey kind of shit. De teacher, she read to
us."
"What's she read?"
"Outen a big book wifout de pitchers."
"Get out of here, Tyrone," Remo said.
After Tyrone left, Remo looked around for the office. Two young
men who looked to be ten years older than the minimum age for
quitting school walked toward him and Remo asked if they knew where
the office was.
"You got a nickel, man?" said one.
"Actually, no," Remo said. "But I've got cash. Probably two
thousand, three thousand dollars. I don't like to walk around
broke."
"Den you gives us some bread iffen you wants de office."
"Go surround a ham hock," Remo said.
The young man backed off a step from Remo, and with a jerking
movement of his hand, had a switchblade out of his pocket and aimed
at Remo's belly.
"Now you gives us bread."
The other young man stood off to the side, applauding quietly, a
big smile on his face.
"You know," Remo said, "school is a great learning
experience."
The man with the knife looked confused. "Ah doan
wanna…"
"For instance," Remo said, "you're going to learn what it feels
like to have your wrist bones mashed to jelly."
The knife wavered in the hand of the young man.
Remo moved a step closer and as if responding to a dare, the
youth pushed the blade forward. The first thing he heard was the
click as the knife blade hit the stone floor. The next thing he
heard was a series of clicks as the bones were shattering in his
right wrist, in the twisting grip of the white man.
The man opened his mouth to scream, but Remo clamped a hand over
his face.
"Mustn't make loud noises. You'll disrupt the little scholars at
their work. Now where's the office?"
He looked at the second young man who said, "Down that corridor.
First door on the right."
"Thank you," Remo said. "Nice talking to you boys."
The door to the office was solid steel without windows and Remo
had to lean his weight on it before it pushed open.
Remo walked up to the long counter inside the office and waited.
Finally a woman appeared and asked "Wha' yo' want?" The woman was
tall and overweight, her hair a haloed mountain of frizz around her
head.
An office door to Remo's left said, "Doctor Shockley, Guidance
Counselor."
"I want to see him," Remo said, pointing toward the door.
"Him's busy. What yo' want see him 'bout?"
"One of your students. A Tyrone Walker."
"De police precinct be down de street. Tell dem 'bout dis
Tyrone."
"I'm not here with a police problem. I want to talk about
Tyrone's schoolwork."
"Who you?"
"I'm a friend of the family. Tyrone's parents are both working
today and they asked me to stop by and see what I could do."
"Wha' yo' say?" The woman's eyes narrowed suspiciously.
"I thought I was speaking English. Tyrone's folks are working
and they wanted me…"
"Ah hear you. Ah hear you. What kind of silly story be dat? What
kind of people you tink we is, you come in and try to fool us like
dat?"
"Fool you?" asked Remo.
"Nobody gots no folks what bofe be working. Why you heah tellin'
dem lies?"
Remo sighed. "I don't know why I bother. All right. I'm Tyrone's
parole officer. I think he's violated parole with a triple rape and
six murders. I want to talk to Shockley before I send him to the
electric chair."
"Dat better, you be tellin' de troof now. You sit down and you
wait and Shockley be wif you when he gets chancet. He busy."
The woman nodded Remo toward a chair and went back to her desk
and a copy of Essential Magazine, the Journal of Black
Beauty. She stared at the cover.
Remo found himself sitting next to a teenage boy who was staring
hard at a coloring book on his lap. It was open to a cartoon of
Porky Pig sniffing a flower in front of a barn.
The boy took a crayon from his shirt pocket, colored one of
Porky's fat round hams pink, then replaced the crayon. He took out
a green one and colored the roof of the barn. He replaced that
crayon and took out the pink one again to do Porky's other rear
leg.
Remo watched over the boy's shoulder.
"You're pretty good," he said.
"Yeah, I do de best in de art appreciation classes."
"I can see why. You almost stay inside all the lines."
"Sometime it be hard though when de lines close together and de
point of de crayon don't fit 'tween dem."
"What do you do then?" asked Remo.
"Ah takes a crayon from somebody whats got a sharp one and ah
use dat one to fit in 'tween de lines."
"And you give him your old crayon?"
The boy looked at Remo, a look of confusion on his face as if
Remo were speaking a language he had never heard.
"Whuffo ah do that? Ah trows de old crayon away. You a social
worker or somefin?"
"No, but sometimes I wish I were."
"Yo' talks funny. 'If ah were' you says."
"That's called English."
"Yeah. That. What your name?"
"Bwana Sahib," Remo said.
"You son of great Arab chief too?"
"I'm a direct descendant of that great Arabian chief,
Pocahontas."
"Great Arab chiefs, dey be black," the boy sniffed. He knew a
fool when he saw one.
"I was on his mother's side," Remo said. "Go back to
coloring."
"It all right. Ah gots till tomorra to finish it."
Remo shook his head. At the desk, the black woman was still
staring at the cover of Essential Magazine, the Journal of
Black Beauty.
Shockley's office door opened slightly and Remo heard a
voice.
"Rat bastard," came a shriek. "You be discriminating. Dat not be
fair."
The door opened fully and a woman stood in the opening, her back
to Remo. She was shaking a fist at something inside the room. The
woman had big thick hams that jiggled below the flowered belt of
her cotton dress. Her hips looked like a hassock with a bite taken
out of it. Her flailing arms set off wave movements in the oceans
of fat that hung from her upper
biceps. A voice inside the room said something softly.
"You still a rat bastard," she said. "If you didn't have dat, I
show you a ting or two."
She turned and stepped toward Remo. If hate had been
electricity, her eyes would have sparked. Her lips were pressed
tight together and her nostrils flared.
For a moment, Remo considered running lest the mastodon get her
hands on him. But she stopped next to the boy who was coloring.
"Come on, Shabazz, we going home."
The boy was trying to finish up the coloring of Porky Pig's
right front leg. Remo could hear his teeth grind as he
concentrated. The woman lingered only for a moment, then clubbed
the boy alongside the head. Crayon went flying one way, the
coloring book the other.
"Come on, ma, why you do dat?"
"We gettin' outta here. Dat rat bastard, he not gonna change his
mind 'bout you graduating."
"You mean your son here is not going to be graduated?" Remo
said. "He's going to be left back?" Maybe there was still some
sanity in the world.
The woman looked at Remo as if he were a fried rib that had lain
all night on a subway platform.
"What you talking? Shabazz here, he de salitate-atorian. He got
honors."
"Then what's the problem?" Remo asked.
"De problem is Shabazz gots go away on May fifteempf. And dat
no good Shockley, he won't change de graduation and make it no
earlier so dat Shabazz get his diploma before he go to de jail. He
do de five years for de robbery."
"That must be heartbreaking after Shabazz works so hard coloring
inside the lines."
"Dat right," said the mother. "C'mon, Shabazz, we gets outta dis
motherfuckin' place."
Shabazz shuffled to his feet. The sixteen-year-old was taller
than Remo. Standing next to his mother, he looked like a pencil
leaning against a pencil sharpener.
He followed the woman from the room, leaving his crayon and
coloring book on the floor where she had knocked them. Remo picked
them up and put them on the small end table that held a lamp,
bolted to the table with long steel stove bolts.
Remo looked across the counter at the woman who was still
staring at the cover of Essential Magazine, the Journal of
Black Beauty, her big lips moving slowly as if she were trying
to crush a very small guppy to death between them. She finally took
a deep breath and turned the cover to the front page.
"Excuse, me," Remo said. "May I go in now?"
The woman slammed shut the cover of the magazine. "Sheeit," she
said. "Always inneruptions. Now ah got to start all over
'gain."
"I won't bother you again," Remo said. "I'll be quiet."
"You do that, heah? Go 'head in, iffen you wants."
Doctor Shockley's office was really two offices. There was the
part Remo stood in, just inside the door, a skeleton of a room with
three chairs bolted to the vinyl-tiled floor and a lamp that was
riveted to the floor and had a tamperproof wire screen around the
bare bulb.
The other part of the office was where Shockley sat at a desk.
Behind him were shelves filled with books, tape recorders, and
statues of African artifacts that were made in a small town in
Illinois. And between the two halves of the office was a screen, a
tight steel mesh that ran from wall to floor, from floor to
ceiling, effectively separating Shockley from anyone who might come
into his office. Next to his desk, a gate was built into the
screen. It was fastened on Shockley's side with a heavy bulletproof
padlock.
Shockley was a trim black man with a modest Afro and darting
eyes. He wore a pin-striped gray suit with a pink shirt and black
figured tie. His fingernails were manicured, Remo noticed, and he
wore a thin gold Omega watch on his narrow wrist.
His hands were open on his desk, palm side down. Next to his
right hand was a .357 Magnum. Remo had to look twice before he
believed it. The gun had notches on the carved wooden grip.
Shockley smiled at Remo as Remo approached the screen.
"Won't you sit down, please?" His voice was nasal, bored, and
precise, the adenoidal Ivy League squeak that clips off words as if
they are unworthy to remain in the speaker's mouth.
"Thank you," Remo said.
"What may I do for you?" Shockley asked.
"I'm a friend of the family. I've come to inquire about one of
your students. A Tyrone Walker."
"Tyrone Walker? Tyrone Walker? Just a moment."
Shockley pressed a panel built into his desk and a television
monitor popped up from inside the left edge of the desk. He pressed
some buttons on a typewriter keyboard and Remo could see the
reflection in his eyes as a flicker of light illuminated the
screen.
"Oh yes. Tyrone Walker." Shockley looked toward Remo with a
smile of love and beneficence. "You'll be happy to know, Mr…
Mister?"
"Sahib," Remo said. "Bwana Sahib."
"Well, Mr. Sahib, you'll be happy to know that Tyrone is doing
just fine."
"I beg your pardon," Remo said.
"Tyrone Walker is doing just fine."
"Tyrone Walker is a living time bomb," Remo said. "It is just a
matter of when he explodes and hurts someone. He is a functional
illiterate, barely housebroken. How can he be doing fine?"
As he spoke, Remo had started to come up out of his chair and
Shockley's hand moved slowly toward the Magnum. He relaxed
as Remo sat back in the seat.
"It's all right here, Mr. Sahib. And computers never lie. Tyrone
is at the top of his class in language arts, near the top in word
graphic presentation, and in the top twentieth percentile in basic
computational skills."
"Let me guess," Remo said. "That's reading, writing, and
arithmetic."
Shockley smiled a small smile. "Well, in the old days, it was
called that. Before we moved into new relevant areas of
education."
"Name one," Remo said.
"It's all right here in one of my books," Shockley said. He
waved his left hand toward a shelf of books directly behind his
left shoulder. "Adventures in Education-An Answer to the
Question of Racism in the Classroom."
"You wrote that?" Remo asked.
"I've written all these books, Mr. Sahib," Shockley said.
"Racism on Trial, Inequality in the Classroom, The Black
Cultural Experience and its Effect on Learning, Street English-A
Historical Imperative."
''Have you written anything about how to teach kids to read and
write?"
"Yes. My masterwork is considered Street English, A
Historial Imperative. It tells how the true English was the
black man's English and the white power structure changed it into
something it was never meant to be, thereby setting ghetto children
at a disadvantage."
"That's idiotic," Remo said.
"Is it? Did you know that the word 'algebra' is itself an Arabic
word? And the Arabs are, of course, black."
"They'd be interested in hearing that," Remo said. "What's your
answer to this disadvantage of ghetto children in learning
English?"
"Let us return to the true basic form of English, Street
English. Black English, if you will."
"In other words, because these bunnies can't talk right, make
their stupidity the standard by which you judge everybody
else?"
"That is racist, Mr. Sahib," Shockley said indignantly.
"I notice you don't speak this Street English," Remo said. "If
it's so pure, why don't you?"
"I have my educational doctorate from Harvard," Shockley said.
His nostrils pinched tighter together as he said it.
"That's no answer. Are you saying you don't speak Street English
because you're smart enough not to?"
"Street English is quite capable of being understood on the
streets."
"What if they want to get off the streets? What if they need to
know something more than 127 different ways to shake hands? What
happens when they go into the real world where most people talk
real English? They'll sound as stupid and backward as that clerk of
yours out there." Remo waved toward the door, outside which he
could still imagine the woman sitting at the desk, worrying to
death the seven words on the cover of Essential Magazine, the
Journal of Black Beauty.
"Clerk?" said Shockley. His eyes raised in a pair of question
marks.
"Yes. That woman out there."
Shockley chuckled. "Oh. You must mean Doctor Bengazi."
"No, I don't mean Doctor anybody. I mean that woman out there
who can't read."
"Tall woman?"
Remo nodded.
"Big frizzy do?" Shockley surrounded his hair with his
hands.
Remo nodded.
Shockley nodded back. "Doctor Bengazi. Our principal."
"God help us all."
Remo and Shockley looked at each other for long seconds without
speaking.
Finally Remo said, "Seeing as how nobody wants to teach these
kids to read or write, why not teach them trades? To be plumbers or
carpenters or truckdrivers or something."
"How quick you all are to consign these children to the scrap
heap. Why should they not have a full opportunity to share in the
riches of American life?"
"Then why the hell don't you prepare them for that full
opportunity?" Remo asked. "Teach them to read, for Christ's sake.
You ever leave a kid back?"
"Leave a child back? What does that mean?"
"You know. Fail to promote him because his work isn't good
enough."
"We have done away with those vestigial traces of racism. IQ
tests, examinations, report cards, promotions. Every child advances
with his or her peer group, socially adept, with the basic skills
of community interaction attuned to the higher meaning of the
ethnic experience."
"But they can't read," Remo yelled.
"I think you overstate the case somewhat," Shockley said, with
the satisfied smile of a man trying to impress the drunken stranger
on the next bar stool.
"I just saw your salutatorian. He can't even color inside the
lines."
"Shabazz is a very bright boy. He has indigenous advancement
attitudes."
"He's a frigging armed robber."
"To err is human. To forgive divine," Shockley said.
"Why didn't you forgive him then and change the date of
graduation for him?" Remo asked.
"I couldn't. I just changed it to another date and I couldn't
make any more changes."
"Why'd you change it the first time?"
"For the valedictorian."
"What's he going up for?" Remo asked.
"It is a she, Mr. Sahib. And no, she is not going to jail.
However, she is going to enjoy the meaningful experience of giving
birth."
"And you moved up the graduation so she wouldn't foal on the
stage?"
"That's crude," Shockley said.
"Did you ever think, Mr. Shockley…"
"Doctor Shockley. Doctor."
"Did you ever think, Doctor Shockley, that perhaps it's your
policies that reduce you to this?"
"To what?"
"To sitting here, barricaded in your office behind a metal
fence, a gun in your hand. Did it ever occur to you that if you
treated your kids as humans, with rights and responsibilities, they
might act like humans?"
"And you think I could do this by 'leaving them, back,' as you
so quaintly put it?"
"For a start, yeah. Maybe if the others see that they've got to
work, they'll work. Demand something from them."
"By leaving them back? Now I'll give you an example. Each
September, we take one hundred children into the first grade. Now
suppose I was to leave back all one hundred because they were
unable to perform satisfactorily on some arbitrary test of learning
experience…"
"Like going to the bathroom," Remo interrupted.
"If I were to leave back all hundred, then next September I
would have two hundred children in the first grade and the
September after that, three hundred children. It would never stop
and after a few years I would be running a school in which everyone
was in the first grade."
Remo shook his head. "That presupposes that all of them would be
left back. You really don't believe that these kids can be taught
to read or write, do you?"
"They can be taught the beauty of black culture, the richness of
their experience in America, and how they overcame degradation and
the white man's slavery, they can be taught…"
"You don't believe that they can be taught to learn anything,"
Remo said again. He stood up. "Shockley, you're a racist, you know
that? You're the worst racist I ever met. You'll accept anything,
any garbage, from these kids because you don't think they're
capable of doing any better."
"I? A racist?" Shockley chuckled and pointed to the wall. "There
is my award for promoting the ideals of brotherhood, equality, and
black excellence, presented to me on behalf of a grateful community
by the Black Ministry Council. So much for racism."
"Where does that computer say Tyrone is now?"
Shockley checked the small screen, then punched another button
on its keyboard. "Room 127, Advanced Communications."
"Good," Remo said. "I can just follow the sound of the
grunts."
"I'm not sure you understand the new aims of modern education,
Mr. Sahib."
"Forget it, pal," Remo said.
"But you…"
Suddenly it spilled out of Remo. The agonizing discussion with
Shockley, the stupidity of the man who had been put in control of
hundreds of young lives, the transparent hypocrisy of a man who
thought that if children lived in the gutter, the thing to do was
to sanctify the gutter with pious words, all of it filled Remo up
like a too-rich meal and, he could feel the bile rising in his
throat. For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, he lost
his temper.
Before Shockley could move, Remo's hand flashed out and ripped a
foot-square hole in the steel screen. Shockley's hands groped out,
grasping for his .357 Magnum but it wasn't there. It was in the
crazy white man's hands, and as Shockley watched in horror, Remo
snapped off the barrel just behind the cylinder. He looked at the
useless weapon, then tossed both parts onto the desk in front of
Shockley.
"There," he said.
Shockley's face was screwed up in anguish as if someone had just
squirted ammonia into his nostrils.
"Why you do that?" he whined.
"Just write it off as another indigenous ethnic experience in
racist white America," Remo said. "That's a book title. It's yours
for free."
Shockley picked up both parts of the pistol and looked at them.
Remo thought he was going to cry.
"You shouldna done dat," Shockley said and turned bloodhound
eyes on Remo.
Remo shrugged.
"What I go do now?" Shockley asked.
"Write another book. Call it Racism on the Rampage."
"You shouldna done dat ting," Shockley said. "I gots de parents
conference all dis appernoon and now whats I gonna do wif no
gun?"
"Stop hiding behind that screen like a goddam fireplace log and
come out and talk to the parents. Maybe they'll tell you that
they'd like their kids to learn to read and write. So long."
Remo walked to the door. He stopped and turned as he heard
Shockley mumbling.
"Deys gonna get me. Deys gonna get me. Oh, lawdy, deys gonna get
me and me wiffen no gun."
"That's the biz, sweetheart," Remo said.
When Remo went to collect Tyrone Walker, he wasn't sure if he
had walked into Room 127 or the sixth annual reunion celebration of
the Manson Family.
There were twenty-seven black teenagers in the classroom, a
limit set by state law because a larger class would have disrupted
the learning experience. A half dozen sat round a windowsill in the
far corner, passing a hand-rolled cigarette from hand to hand. The
room reeked with the deep bitter smell of marijuana. Three tall
youths amused themselves by throwing switchblade knives at a
picture of Martin Luther King that was Scotch-taped to one of the
pecan-paneled walls of the classroom. Most of the students lounged
at and on desks, their feet up on other desks, listening to
transistor radios that blared forth the top four songs on the
week's hit parade, "Love is Stoned," "Stone in Love," "In Love I'm
Stoned," and "Don't Stone My Love." The din in the classroom
sounded like a half dozen symphony orchestras warming up at the
same time. In a bus.
Three very pregnant girls stood by a side wall, talking to each
other, giggling and drinking wine from a small pint bottle of
muscatel. Remo looked around for Tyrone and found him sleeping
across two desks.
Remo drew a few glances from some of the students who then
dismissed him with contempt and disdain by turning away.
At the head of the classroom, seated at a desk, bent over a pile
of papers, was an iron-haired woman wearing a small-size version of
a man's wrist watch and a severe black dress. There was a little
nameplate screwed into the teacher's desk. It read Miss
Feldman.
The teacher did not look up and Remo stood alongside her desk,
watching what she was doing.
She had a stack of sheets of lined paper in front of her. On the
top of each sheet was rubber-stamped the name of a student. Most of
the papers she looked at were blank, except for the rubber-stamped
name. On the blank papers, Miss Feldman marked a neat 90 percent in
the upper right hand corner.
An occasional sheet would have some scratched pencil scrawls on
it. Those Miss Feldman marked 99 percent with three lines under the
score for emphasis and carefully glued a gold star to the top
center of the sheet.
She went through a dozen sheets before she realized someone
was standing at her desk. She looked up, startled, then relaxed when she saw Remo. "What
are you doing?" he asked. She smiled at him but said nothing. "What
are you doing?" Remo repeated. Miss Feldman continued to smile. No
wonder, Remo thought. The teacher was simple. Maybe brain damaged.
Then he saw the reason. There were tufts of cotton stuck into Miss
Feldman's ears.
Remo reached down and yanked them out. She winced as the rock
and roar of the classroom assaulted her eardrums.
"I asked what are you doing?"
"Marking test papers."
"A blank is a 90, a scratch is a 99 with a gold star?" Remo
said.
"You must reward effort," Miss Feldman said. Stie ducked as a
book came whizzing by her head, thrown from the back of the
room.
"What kind of test?" Remo asked.
"Basic tools of language art," said Miss Feldman.
"Which means?"
"The alphabet."
"You tested them on the alphabet. And most of them turned in
blank pages? And they get 90s?"
Miss Feldman smiled. She looked over her shoulder as if someone
could sneak up behind her in the three inches she had left between
her back and the wall.
"How long have you done this kind of work?" Remo said.
"I've been a teacher for thirty years."
"You've never been a teacher," Remo said. And she hadn't. A
teacher was Sister Mary Margaret who knew that while the road to
hell was paved with good intentions, the road to heaven was paved
with good deeds, hard work, discipline, and a demand for excellence
from each student. She had worked in the Newark Orphanage where
Remo had grown up and whenever he thought of her, he could almost
feel the bruises her ruler raps on the knuckles had given him when
she felt he was not trying hard enough.
"What do you make here?" Remo asked.
"Twenty-one thousand, three hundred, and twelve dollars," Miss
Feldman answered. Sister Mary Margaret had never seen a hundred
dollars at one time in her whole life.
"Why don't you try teaching these kids?" Remo asked.
"You're from the community school board?" Miss Feldman said
suspiciously.
"No."
"The central school board?"
"No."
"The financial control board?"
"No."
"The state superintendent's office?"
"No."
"The federal office of education?"
"No. I'm not from nobody. I'm just from me. And I'm wondering
why you don't teach these kids anything."
"Just from you?"
"Yes."
"Well, Mister Just-from-You, I've been in this school for eight
years. The first week I was here, they tried to rape me three
times. The first marking period, I failed two-thirds of the class
and the tires were slashed on my car. The second marking period, I
failed six kids and my car was set on fire. Next marking period,
more failures, and my dog's throat was cut in my apartment while I
slept. Then the parents picketed the school, protesting my racist,
antiblack attitudes.
"The school board, those paragons of backbone, suspended me for
three months. When I came back, I brought a bag of gold stars with
me. I haven't had any trouble since and I'm retiring next year.
What would you have expected me to do?"
"You could teach," Remo said.
"The essential difference between trying to teach this class and
trying to teach a gravel pit is that you can't get raped by a
gravel pit," Miss Feldman said. "Rocks don't carry knives."
She looked down at the papers in front of her. One paper had
five neat rows of five letters each. Twenty-five letters. Miss
Feldman marked it 100 percent with four gold stars.
"The valedictorian?" Remo asked.
"Yes. She always has trouble with the W's."
"If you tried to teach, could they learn?" Remo asked.
"Not by the time they reach me," Miss Feldman said. "This is a
senior class. If they're illiterate when they get here, they stay
illiterate. They could be taught in the early grades though. If
everybody would just realize that giving a failing mark to a black
kid doesn't mean that you're a racist who wants to go back to
slaveholding. But they have to do it in the early grades."
As Remo watched, a small tear formed in the inside corner of
Miss Feldman's left eye.
"And they don't," he said.
"They don't. And so I sit here putting gold stars on papers that
twenty years ago would have been grounds for expulsion, black
student or white student. What we've come to."
"I'm a friend of Tyrone's. How's he doing?"
"As compared to?"
"The rest of the class," Remo said.
"With luck, he'll go to prison before he's eighteen. That way
he'll never starve to death."
"If you had it in your power to decide, would you keep him
alive? Would you keep any of them alive?"
"I'd kill them all over the age of six. And I'd start fresh with
the young ones and make them work. Make them learn. Make them
think."
"Almost like a teacher," Remo said.
She looked up at him sadly. "Almost," she agreed.
Remo turned away and clapped Tyrone on the shoulder. He woke
with a start that nearly tipped over the desks.
"Come on, clown," Remo said. "Time to go home."
"Quittin' bell ring already?" Tyrone asked.
CHAPTER NINE
The fact that Tyrone Watson had made one of his infrequent
appearances in class was quickly noted by one Jamie Rickets, alias
Ali Muhammid, alias Ibn Faroudi, alias Aga Akbar, AKA Jimmy the
Blade.
Jamie talked briefly to Tyrone, then left Malcolm-King-Lumumba
School and jumped the wires on the first car he found with an
unlocked door and drove the twelve blocks back to Walton
Avenue.
In a pool hall, he found the vice counselor of the Saxon Lords
and related that Tyrone had mentioned he spent the night at the
Hotel Plaza in Manhattan. The vice counselor of the Saxon Lords
went to the corner tavern and told the deputy subregent of the
Saxon Lords who repeated the message to the deputy minister of war.
Actually, the Saxon Lords had no minister of war who would have a
deputy. But the title "deputy minister of war," it was decided, was
longer and more impressive sounding than minister of war.
The deputy minister of war repeated it to the sub-counselor of
the Saxon Lords, whom he found sleeping in a burned-out
laundromat.
Twenty five minutes later, the subcounselor finally found the
Saxon Lords' Leader for Life, sleeping on a bare mattress in the
first-floor-left apartment of an abandoned building.
The Leader for Life, who had held the job for less than twelve
hours since the sudden schoolyard demise of the last Leader for
Life, knew what to do. He got up from his mattress, brushed off
anything that might be crawling on him, and walked out onto Walton
Avenue where he extorted ten cents from the first person he saw, an
elderly black man on his way home from the night watchman's job he
had held for thirty-seven years.
He used the dime to phone a number in Harlem.
"De Lawd be with you," the phone was answered.
"Yeah, yeah," said the Leader for Life. "Ah jes finds out where
dey staying."
"Oh?" said the Reverend Josiah Wadson. "Where's that?"
"De Hotel Plaza down in de city."
"Very good," said Wadson. "You knows what to do?"
"Ah knows."
''Good. Take only yo' best mens."
"All my mens be my best mens. 'Ceppin Big-Big Pickens and he
still in Nooick."
"Don't mess things up," Wadson said.
"Ah doan."
The Leader for Life of the Saxon Lords hung up the pay telephone
in the little candy store. Then because he was Leader for Life and
leaders had to display their power, he yanked the receiver cord
from the body of the telephone.
He chuckled as he left the store on his way to round up a few of
his very, very best men.
CHAPTER TEN
"Where we goin'?" asked Tyrone.
"Back to the hotel."
"Sheeit. Whyn't yo' jes' leave me go?"
"I'm making up my mind whether to kill you or not."
"Dass not right. Ah never did nuffin' you."
"Tyrone, your presence on this earth is doing something to me.
You offend me. Now shut up, I'm trying to think."
"Sheeit, dat silly."
"What is?"
"Try'n-to think. Nobody try to think. Yo' jes' does it. It be
natural."
"Close your face before I close it for you," Remo said.
Tyrone did and slumped in the far corner of the cab's left rear
seat.
And as the cab driver tooled down toward Manhattan, four young
black men walked along the hallway of the sixteenth floor of the
Hotel Plaza toward the suite where a blood brother bellboy had told
them a white man was staying with an old Oriental.
Tyrone stayed quiet for a full minute, then could stay quiet no
more. "Ah doan lahk staying in dat place," he said.
"Why not?"
"Dat bed, it be hard."
"What bed?"
"Dat big bed wiffout de mattress. It be hard and hurt my back
and everyfing."
"The bed?" Remo asked.
"Yeah. Sheeit."
"The big hard white bed?"
"Yeah."
"The big hard white bed that curves up at both ends?" Remo
asked.
"Yeah. Dat bed."
"That's a bathtub, plungermouth. Close your face."
And while Remo and Tyrone discussed the latest in bathroom
furniture, the Leader for Life of the Saxon Lords put his hand on
the doorknob of Suite 1621 in the Plaza, turned it slightly, and
when he found the door unlocked and open, presented a pearly smile
of triumph to his three associates who grinned back and brandished
their brass knuckles and lead-filled saps.
The cab came across the bumpy, rutted Willis Avenue bridge into
northern Manhattan, and as the cab jounced up and down on the
pitted road surface, Remo wondered if anything worked anymore in
America.
The road he was riding on felt as if it hadn't been paved since
it was built. The bridge looked as if it had never been painted.
There was a school system that didn't teach and a police force that
didn't enforce the law.
He looked out at the buildings, the geometric row after row of
city slum buildings, factories, walkups.
Everything was going to rack and ruin. It sounded like a law
firm that America had on a giant retainer. Rack and Ruin.
Nothing worked anymore in America.
Meanwhile, the Leader for Life opened the door of Suite 1621
wide. Sitting on the floor in front of them, scribbling furiously
on parchment with a quill pen, was an aged Oriental. Tiny tufts of
hair dotted his head. A trace of wispy beard blossomed below his
chin. Seen from behind, his neck was thin and scrawny, ready for
wringing. His wrists, jutting out of his yellow robe, were
delicately thin, like the wrists of a skinny old lady. He must have
used a stick the other night in the schoolyard when he hit one of
the Lords, the new Leader for Life thought. But they were all
little kids anyway. Now he was going to see the real Saxon
Lords.
"Come in and close the door," Chiun said without turning. "You
are welcome to his place." His voice was soft and friendly.
The Leader for Life motioned his three followers to move into
the room, then closed the door and rolled his eyes toward the old
man with a smile. This was gonna be easy. Dat chinky mufu was gonna
be a piece of cake. A twinkie even.
Inside the cab as it turned south along the Franklin D.
Roosevelt East Side drive, Tyrone's mouth began to work as he tried
to formulate a sentence. But Remo was close to something. There was
a thought gnawing at him and he didn't want it interrupted by
Tyrone so he clapped a hand out across Tyrone's mouth and held it
there.
It had only been a few years before that a liberal mayor the
city's press had loved had left office and soon after one of the
city's major elevated highways had fallen down. Even though
millions had been spent allegedly keeping the road repaired,
nobody was indicted, no one went to jail, no one seemed to care.
A little bit later it turned out that the same administration
had been underestimating the cost of the city's pension agreements
by using actuarial tables from the early twentieth century when
people's average lifespan was a full twelve years shorter. Nobody
cared.
In any other city, there would have been grand jury probes,
governor's investigations, mayor's task forces looking into the
problem. New York City just yawned and went about its business, its
politicians even trying to promote the same mayor, the most inept
in a long tradition of inept mayors, into the presidency of the
United States.
Who could get upset in New York about just a few more
indignities? There were so many indignities day after day.
Remo wondered why, and then a thought came to him.
Was it really America that was so bad? That was falling apart?
Out there, across a land of three thousand miles, there were
politicians and government officials who tried to do a good job.
There Were cops more interested in catching muggers than in running
classes to teach people to be mugged successfully. There were roads
that were paved regularly so that people could drive on them with a
good chance of getting to their destination at the same time as
their auto's transmission. There were teachers who tried to teach.
And often succeeded.
It wasn't America that had failed. That had fallen apart. It was
New York, a city of permanently lowered expectations where people
lived and surrendered to a lifestyle worse than almost anywhere
else in the country. Where people gave up their right to shop in
supermarkets at low prices and instead supported neighborhood
delicatessens whose prices made the OPEC oil nations look
charitable. Where people calmly accepted the fact that it would
take forty-five minutes to move five blocks crosstown. Where people
surrendered the right to own automobiles because there was no place
to park them and no roads fit to drive them on and the streets were
unsafe even for automobiles. Where people thought it was a good
thing to have block patrols to fight crime, never considering that
in most cities, police forces fought crime.
And New Yorkers put up with all of it and smiled to each other
at cocktail parties, their shoes still reeking of the scent of
dog-doo that covered the entire city to an average depth of seven
inches, and clicked their glasses of white wine and said how they
just simply wouldn't live anyplace else.
When New York City went bankrupt every eighteen months in one of
its regularly scheduled bursts of Faroukian excess, its
politicians liked to lecture the country, while begging for
handouts, that New York was the heart and soul of America.
But it wasn't, Remo thought. It was the mouth of America, a
mouth that never was still, flapping from television stations and
networks and radio chains and magazines and newspapers, until even
some people living in the Midwest began to believe that if New York
City was so bad, well, then, by God, so was the rest of the
country.
But it wasn't, Remo realized. America worked. It was New York
City that didn't work. And the two of them weren't the same.
It made him feel better about his job.
"You can talk now," Remo said, releasing Tyrone's mouth.
"Ah forgot what ah was gonna say."
"Hold that thought," Remo said.
And as the cab pulled off the FDR drive at Thirty-fourth Street
to head west and north again to the Plaza Hotel-its driver figuring
to clip his passengers for an extra seventy cents by prolonging the
trip-the Leader for Life of the Saxon Lords put his heavy hand on
the shoulder of the aged Oriental in Suite 1621 at the Plaza.
"Awright, chinkey Charley," he said. "Yo' comin' wi£ us.
Yo' and that honkey mufu you runs 'round wif." He shook the seated
man's shoulder for emphasis. Or tried to shake the shoulder. It
seemed to him a little odd that the frail, less than
one-hundred-pound body did not move when he tried to shake it.
The old Oriental looked up at the Leader for Life, then at the
hand on his left shoulder, then up again and smiled.
"You may leave this world happy," he said with a gracious look.
"You have touched the person of the Master of Sinanju."
The Leader for Life giggled. The old gook, he talk funny. Like
one of dem faggy honkey perfessers that was always on de
television, talking, talking, all de time talking.
He giggled again. Showing de old chink a ting or two was gonna
be fun. Real fun.
He took the heavy lead sap out of his back pants pocket, just as
a cab pulled up in front of the Plaza on Sixtieth Street sixteen
floors below.
Remo paid the driver and steered Tyrone Walker up the broad
stone staircase into the lobby of the grand hotel.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
There were always sounds in a hotel corridor. There were people
with the television on and other people singing as they dressed.
Showers ran and toilets flushed and air conditioning hummed. In the
Plaza, everything was fudged over with the traffic noise of New
York City. The secret in sorting out the different noises was to
focus the ears as most people focused their eyes.
When Remo and Tyrone came off the elevator on the sixteenth
floor, Remo immediately heard the voices in Suite 1621. He could
hear Chiun's voice, and he could hear other voices. Three, perhaps
four.
Remo pushed Tyrone into the room first. Chiun was standing near
a window, his back toward the street. The afternoon sun silhouetted
him dark against the bright light pouring through the thin drapes
that ran almost all the way up to the fourteen-foot-high
ceiling.
Sitting on the floor facing Chiun were three young men wearing
the blue denim jackets of the Saxon Lords. Their hands were neatly
in their laps.
Stuffed off in a corner of the room was another young black man
and Remo could tell from the awkward splay of his limbs that it was
too late for him to worry about holding his hands properly.
Sprinkled haphazardly about his body was a collection of blackjacks
and brass knuckles.
Chiun nodded to Remo silently and kept speaking.
"Now try this," he said. "I will obey the law."
The three black youths spoke in unison. "Ah will obeys de
law."
"No, no, no," Chiun said. "With me. I, not Ah."
"I," the three men said slowly, with difficulty.
"Very good," Chiun said. "Now. I will obey. Not obeys.
Obey."
"I will obey."
"That's correct. Now. The law. Not de law. The. Your tongue must
protrude slightly from your mouth and be touched by your upper
teeth. Like this." He demonstrated. "The. The. The law."
"The law," the men said slowly.
"Fine. And now the whole thing. I will obey the law."
"Ah will obeys de law."
"What?" shrieked Chiun.
Remo laughed. "By George, I think they've got it. Now try them
on the rain in Spain."
"Silence… honkey," Chiun spat. He fixed the three youths
with hazel eyes that seemed cut from stone. "You. This time,
right."
"I. Will. Obey. The. Law." The three men spoke slowly,
carefully.
"Again."
"I will obey the law." Faster this time.
"Very good," Chiun said.
"Can we go now, massa?"
"It is not massa. It is Master. Master of Sinanju."
Tyrone said, "Brothers," and the three black men wheeled and
stared at him. Their eyes were alive with terror and not even
seeing Tyrone standing next to Remo alleviated it.
"Repeat your lessons for the nice gentleman," Chiun said.
As if they were all on one string, the three heads jerked around
to face Chiun.
"I will respect the elderly. I will not steal or kill. I will
obey the law."
"Very good," Chiun said.
Remo jerked his thumb toward the body in the corner. "Slow
learner?"
"I did not have a chance to find out. To teach them, first it
was necessary to get their attention. He happened to be the best
way to do it, since he had touched my person."
Chiun looked down at the three youths.
"You may stand now."
The three got slowly to their feet. They appeared ill at ease,
unsure of what to do with themselves. Tyrone, not having undergone
Chiun's good manners school, solved the problem by engaging them in
a complicated round robin of hand-slapping greetings, hands apart,
hands together, palms up, palms down, palms sliding across other
palms. It looked, Remo thought, like pattycake class at a mental
institution.
The three young men collected with Tyrone in a corner and
whispered to him. Tyrone came back to give the message to Remo as
they watched suspiciously.
"De Revin Wadson, he wanna talk to you."
"Who? Oh, yeah. The fence."
"Right. He wanna see you."
"Good. I want to see him too," Remo said.
"Dey say he know somefin' about de Missus Mueller," Tyrone
said.
"Where do I find him?" Remo asked.
"He gots de big 'partment up in Harlem. Dey takes you dere."
"Good. You can come too."
"Me? Whuffo?"
"In case I need a translator. And you three, get rid of your
garbage," Remo said, pointing to the body of the Saxon Lords'
Leader for Life, who, since touching Chiun, no longer led. Or
lived.
Ingrid did not like the Reverend Josiah Wadson, so at random
moments during the day, she jogged the toggle switch on the little
black box controlling the strangulation ring. And she smiled when
she was rewarded with a roar of pain from wherever in his apartment
Wadson was trying to rest.
Before setting foot in Wadson's apartment the night before, she
had guessed what she would find. Loud, grotesque, expensive
furniture, paid for with money that should have gone to the poor
whose case he was always talking up.
But Wadson's life style was lavish, even for her expectations.
And unusual.
He had two live-in maids, both young and white, both paid by the
federal government as program coordinators for Affirmative Housing
II. They looked as if they had majored in Massage Parlor. They
dressed like burlesque queens and they were both holding crystal
tumblers of whiskey when Ingrid and Wadson returned to the
apartment on the fringes of Harlem.
The main living room of the apartment was crammed full, like a
junk drawer in a kitchen sink. Statuary, oil paintings, metal
sculptures, gold medallions, jewelry were everywhere.
"Where did you get all this dross?" she asked Wadson, after she
dismissed the two maids and told them to take the rest of the week
off, a gift for loyal service from a grateful government.
"Deys gifts from faithful followers who join me in de Lawd's
woik."
"In other words, from poor people you fleeced."
Wadson tried to engage her with a "that's life" grin, wide
enough to show every one of his thirty-two teeth and most of the
gold that lined the biting surfaces.
"I thought as much," she said in disgust. To emphasize the
point, she pushed the toggle switch on the black box a millimeter
forward. The pain in his groin brought Wadson to his knees.
But she was truly surprised when she saw the rest of the
apartment. The living room, kitchen, and two bedrooms were in use.
But there were six other rooms in the apartment and each was
filled, from floor to ceiling, with television sets, radios, pots
and pans, stereo record players, hubcaps. As she went from room to
room looking at the treasure trove, it dawned on her what Wadson
was. He was a fence for the goods stolen by the street gangs.
It was a suspicion and she asked him if it were true.
Lying was out of the question, he knew. He grinned again.
She left him groaning on the floor of the living room and went
into the kitchen to make herself coffee. Only when the coffee had
been made and cooled and half consumed, did she return and lighten
the pressure on the strangulation ring.
It took an hour of rooting around for Wadson to find the device
that had been stolen from the Muellers' apartment. He handed it to
Ingrid, hoping for some sign of approval.
"You go to bed now," she said.
She stayed in a chair alongside the bed until she was sure
Wadson was asleep. Then she telephoned Spesk and described to him
the secret device and they shared a laugh.
She spent the night sitting in the chair next to Wadson's
bed.
She stood alongside him when he talked to the Saxon Lords about
how important it was to find the thin American and the Oriental,
and they both learned that the two targets had kidnapped one of the
Lords, Tyrone Walker. Wadson was at his unctuous worst in talking
to the Lords and it gave her pleasure to toy with the little switch
and bring the sweat out on his forehead and cause him to stumble
over his own words.
She was still at his side now, as he sat in a chair facing the
thin American and the ancient Oriental, and the tall thin black boy
who had accompanied them.
"Why he here?" Wadson asked, motioning to Tyrone. "Why is this
child here involved in the business of men?" He winced as the pain
reminded him of Ingrid standing behind his chair. "And women."
"He's here because I wanted him here," said Remo. "Now what do
you want with us?"
"You interested in de Missus Mueller, I hear."
"You hear good," said Remo.
"Well," said Tyrone.
"What?" asked Remo.
"You say he hear good," Tyrone said. "Dat wrong. You sposed say
he hear well. Ah learns dat in school."
"Shut up," Remo said. "I'm interested in two things," he said to
Waclson. "The person that killed her. And to get some kind of
device she may have had."
"Ah gots de dee-vice," said Wadson.
"I wants it," Remo said. "Dammit, Tyrone, now you've got me
doing it. I want it."
"Very good," Chiun said to Remo.
"I'll get it for you," Wadson said.
He rose slowly to his feet and walked toward a far corner of the
room. Chiun caught Remo's eyes and nodded slightly, calling his
attention to Wadson's labored walk and obvious pain.
Ingrid watched Wadson with the shrewd suspicious eyes of a
chicken farmer looking in the barnyard for fox tracks. Remo watched
Ingrid. He guessed her as the source of Wadson's pain but he could
not tell what kind. The black minister walked heavily, planting one
foot in front of the other delicately, as if he suspected the floor
was land-mined.
Wadson opened the drop front of an antique desk and took from
inside it a cardboard box almost a foot square. From the box, he
lifted a device that looked like a metronome with four arms. Three
wires led out of the machine.
He brought it back and handed it to Remo. Wadson walked back to
his chair. Ingrid smiled as he raised his eyes to hers in an
unspoken appeal to be allowed to sit. She nodded slightly and,
shielded from the view of the others by the backs of the large
chair, lightened the pressure on the toggle switch slightly.
Wadson's sigh of relief filled the room.
"What's it do?" Remo asked, after turning the metronome over and
over in his hand. He had never understood machinery. This looked
like just another dippy toy.
"Dunno," Wadson said. "But that's it."
Remo shrugged. "One last thing. Big-Big somebody. He killed Mrs.
Mueller. Where is he?"
"I hear he's in Newark."
"Where?" asked Remo.
"Ah'm lookin' for him," Wadson said.
"If he's in Newark, how'd you get this?" asked Remo.
"Somebody left it outside my door with a note dat the government
was looking for it," Wadson said.
"I think that's crap, but we'll let it pass," Remo said. "I want
this Big-Big."
"What'll you do for me?" Wadson said. "Iffen I find him?"
"Let you live," Remo said. "I don't know what's wrong with you,
Reverend, but you look like you're in pain. Whatever it is, it'll
be nothing compared to what I've got for you, if you're not
straight with me."
Wadson raised his hands in a gesture that might have been
protest, or the instinctive movement of a man trying to hold back a
brick wall that was ready to fall on him.
"I'm not jivin' you," he said. "I got peoples all over de
street. I find out soon."
"You let me know right away."
"Who are you anyway?" asked Wadson.
"Let's just say I'm not a private citizen."
"You got family? Mrs. Mueller you family?"
"No," said Remo. I'm an orphan. The nuns raised me. Chiun here
is my only family."
"Adopted," Chiun said, lest anyone get the idea that he had
white blood in him.
"Where'd you learn to do what you do?" Wadson asked.
"Just what is it I do?"
"I heard you kinda cuffed around de Lawds de other night. That
kind of do."
"Just a trick," Remo said.
Tyrone was walking about the room, looking at the statues and
the small pieces of crystal and jewelry on the shelves.
"Don' you go liftin' none of them," Wadson yelled. "Dey
mine."
Tyrone looked miffed that anyone might think him capable of
theft. He stepped away from the shelf and continued walking around
the room. He stopped near Ingrid, saw what she was doing, and with
the quick practiced hands of a purse snatcher, reached over and
snatched the black box from her hand.
"Look at this," he said, holding it forward to Remo.
"Boy, don' touch that switch," Wadson said. "Please."
"Which switch?" said Tyrone. "Dis one here?" He put his fingers
on the toggle switch.
"Please, boy. Let go of it."
"Give it back to me, Tyrone," Ingrid said coolly. "Just hand it
back to me."
"What's it do?" Tyrone asked.
"It's a pain-killing device for people with migraine headaches,"
she said. "The reverend suffers greatly from that feeling of
tightness around his head. That relieves it. Please give it back to
me." She extended her hand for the little black box.
Tyrone looked at Remo who shrugged. "Give it back to her," he
said.
"I do," said Tyrone. He started to extend the little box, but
couldn't resist giving the switch a tiny push.
"Aiieee!" screamed Wadson.
Ingrid snatched the box from Tyrone's hands and quickly moved
the switch back. Wadson sipped air in relief, so deeply it sounded
as if someone had turned on a vacuum cleaner. He was still hissing
when they left. Ingrid stood behind him smiling.
In the hallway walking downstairs, Remo asked, "What do you
think, Little Father?"
"About what?"
"About Reverend Wadson?"
"There is less there than meets the eye," said Chiun.
"And about this machine of the Muellers?"
"It is a machine. All machines are alike. They break. Send it to
Smith. He likes to play with toys."
The device was delivered to Smith's office in Rye, New York at
two a.m. by a cabdriver who had been paid with half of a hundred
dollar bill and a grinding brief pain in his right kidney. He was
told to deliver it fast and he would get the other half of the
hundred at the Hotel Plaza desk and would not get the rest of the
pain.
It was the middle of the night and Tyrone was asleep in the
bathroom when there was a knock on the door.
"Who is it?" Remo called.
"The bellboy, sir. There's a phone call for you. And your phone
is out of order."
"I know. I'll take it in the lobby."
"I received the package," Smith told Remo when he picked up the
telephone downstairs.
"Oh, Smitty. Nice to hear from you again. You recruit my
replacement yet?"
"I only hope that if I do he will be more reasonable to deal
with than you are." Remo was surprised. Smith never showed temper.
Or any other emotion for that matter. The realization that this was
a first chastened Remo.
"What's with the device?" he asked. "Any value?"
"None. It's a lie detector that runs on induction."
"What's that mean?"
"They don't have to attach wires to the subject. So it's useful
in questioning a suspect whom you don't want to know he's a
suspect. You can ask him questions and hook that device up to the
bottom of his chair and it'll register whether he's telling the
truth or not."
"Sounds good," Remo said.
"Fair," said Smith. "We've got better stuff now. And with
pentothal, nobody in tradework uses devices much anymore."
"Okay, so I'm done here and now I can get about my other
business?"
"Which is?"
"Finding the man who killed that old lady to steal a machine
that didn't have any value."
"That'll have to wait," Smith said. "You're not done."
"What else?" Remo asked.
"Don't forget. I told you about Colonel Speskaya being in the
country and two other weapons he was trying to get his hands
on."
"Probably more lie detectors," Remo said.
"I doubt it. He's too good to be fooled. So that's your job.
Find out what he's after and get it for us."
"And when I'm done with that?"
"Then you can do anything you want. Really, Remo, I don't know
why this is so important to you."
"Because somebody out there put an icepick in an old lady's eye
just for fun. Killing for sport cheapens the work I do. I'm going
to keep the amateurs out."
"Making the world safe for assassins?" Smith asked.
"Making it unsafe for animals."
"You do it. I just hope you can tell the difference," said Smith
before the telephone line clicked in Remo's ear.
Remo put down the telephone with the same faint feeling of
unease that conversations with Smith always gave him. It was as if,
without saying a word, Smith entered a continuous moral judgment
against Remo. But where was the immorality since it had been Smith
who virtually kidnaped Remo from his straight middle-America life
to make him a killer? Were moral judgments only valid for what
other people did, and expediency the only yardstick one used on
himself?
Chiun noticed the puzzled look on Remo and was about to speak
when they heard the scratching on the bathroom door.
Simultaneously, they decided to ignore Tyrone.
"You worry, my son, because you are yet a child."
"Dammit, Chiun, I'm no child. I'm a grown man. And I don't like what's going down. Smith's got me running
around looking for two more secret weapons and I just… well,
I'm just not interested in it all anymore."
"You will always be a child if you expect men to be more than
they are. If you are walking through the woods, you do not get
angry at a tree that happened to grow up directly in your path. The
tree could not help it. It existed. You do not sit on the ground in
front of that tree and lecture it. You ignore it. And if you cannot
ignore it, you remove it. So you must act with people. They are,
for the most part, like trees. They do what they do because they
are what they are."
"And so I should ignore all those that I can and remove those
that I can't?"
"Now you are seeing the light of wisdom," Chiun said, folding
his hands in front of him with a movement as smooth as that of an
underwater plant.
"Chiun, the world you give me is a world without morality. Where
nothing counts for anything except keeping your elbow straight and
breathing right and attacking correctly. You give me no morality
and that makes me happy. Smith gives me a shitpot full of morality
and it disgusts me. But I like his world better than yours."
Chiun shrugged. "That is because you do not understand the real
meaning of my world. I do not give you a world without morality. I
give you a world of total morality but the only morality you
totally control is your own. Be moral. You can do no greater thing
in your life." He moved his arms around in a large slow circle.
"Try to make other people moral and you are trying to ignite ice
with a match."
Tyrone stopped scratching. "Hey, when ah gets out of here?" his
muffled voice called. Remo looked toward the locked bathroom
door.
"And him?"
"He is what he is," Chiun said. "A candy wrapper on the street,
an orange peel in the garbage. A man who decides to worry about
everyone will have no shortage of things to keep him busy."
"You say I should let him go?"
"I say you should do whatever makes you a better person," Chiun
said.
"And what about the man who killed Mrs. Mueller? Let him go
too?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because you need that one if you are to be at peace with
yourself. So find him and do what it is you wish with him."
"That's a selfish view of life, Little Father. Tell me. Don't
you ever wish you could just get rid of all the evil people in the
world, all the garbage, all the animals?"
"No," Chiun said.
"Did you ever?" Remo asked.
Chiun smiled. "Of course. I was a child once too, Remo."
CHAPTER TWELVE
When Remo's cab pulled up in front of Reverend Wadson's
apartment building, the crowd was pulsating on the street and
sidewalk. Some carried signs, others were chanting. "Brutality.
Atrocity."
Remo tapped the driver on the shoulder and motioned him to the
curb.
"Wait here for me," he said.
The cabbie looked at the two hundred people milling around
across the street, then swiveled on his seat to look at Remo.
"I'm not staying here, buddy. Not with that gang over there.
They'll use me for chum if they spot me."
"I'd like to stay and discuss it with you," said Remo, "but I
don't have the time." His hand slipped forward past the driver,
turned the ignition key off, and plucked it from its slot on the
steering column, all in one deft movement. "You wait. Lock the
doors, but wait. I'll be right back."
"Where you going?"
"Over there." Remo motioned to the apartment house.
"You'll never be back."
Remo dropped the keys into his trouser pocket. As he trotted
across the street, he could hear the heavy mechanical click of the
four door locks in the cab behind him.
The crowd was being kept at bay by the locked front doors of the
apartment building. Inside the lobby, a uniformed doorman kept
motioning the people to leave.
"What's going on?" Remo asked the question of a young man with a
shaved head and a Fu Manchu mustache who stood on the fringe of the
crowd.
The man looked at Remo. His face curled down in disgust and he
turned away silently.
"We'll try one more time," Remo said gently. "What's going on?"
He punctuated the question, using his right hand to grip the
muscles on both sides of the man's lower spine.
The man straightened up from the pain, taller than he had ever
stood before in his life.
"They got Reverend Wadson."
"Who's they?"
"I don't know who they is. His enemies. Enemies of the people.
The oppressors."
"What do you mean, they got Wadson?"
"He's dead. They killed him. Cut him up and butchered him. Let
go, that hurts."
Remo did not let go. "And 'they' did it?"
"That's right."
"And what do these people want? Why are they marching around
here?"
"They want justice."
"They think you get it by singing?"
The young man tried to shrug. It felt as if his shoulders were
going up and leaving his spinal column behind. He changed his
mind.
"Police arrive yet?" asked Remo.
"They just been called."
"Thank you. A pleasure talking with you," Remo said.
He released the young man and moved along the perimeter of the
crowd. If he went through the front door, he'd just open a path for
this mob. Behind him, the young man tried to marshal his breath to
sic the crowd on Remo but every time he tried to fill his lungs to
shout, the pain returned to his back. He decided that silence was
golden.
Remo surged forward and back with the crowd, moving from spot to
spot, being seen, then disappearing, visible, invisible, never in
anyone's field of vision for more than a split second, until he had
moved to the alley alongside the apartment building. The alley was
barred by a locked iron gate eight feet high, with spikes atop it,
and barbed wire laced in and out of the spikes.
Remo grabbed the heavy lock and wrenched it with his right hand
and the gate gave way smoothly. Remo slipped aside, then punished
the lock again until it merged with the metal of the fence and
stayed closed. The fire escapes were in the rear of the building
and Remo went up the fourteen stories until he got to a window
outside Wadson's apartment. He was ready to push open the window
when the drapes inside were flung back and the window was
opened.
Ingrid stifled a scream when she saw Remo on the fire escape,
then said, "Thank God you're here."
"What happened?" Remo asked.
"Josiah's dead." Tears poured from her eyes.
"I know. Who did it?"
"A blond man. With a foreign accent. I was sleeping but he came
into the apartment and I heard him talking to Josiah and then I
heard screams and when I got up, Josiah was all cut up and dead.
The blond man was running out the door. I called the doorman to
stop him, but I guess he escaped."
"Why are you running away before the police arrive?"
"This'll cost me my job if I'm found here. I was supposed to be
doing a film documentary. I wasn't supposed to fall in love with a
black man." She climbed out onto the fire escape. "I loved that
man. I really did." She buried her face in Remo's shoulder and
wept. "Please get me away from here."
"All right," Remo said.
Remo closed the window again, then hustled her down the fire
escape and out another alley behind the building. It exited onto
another side street, secured by an identical heavy iron gate. Remo
snapped the steel with his hands. He turned to see Ingrid staring
at the twisted metal.
"How'd you do that?" she asked.
"Must have been defective," Remo answered, as he steered her
around the corner to the cab. The driver was lying on the front
seat of the cab, trying to keep out of sight and Remo had to thump
loudly on the window to get him to look up. Remo gave him his keys
back and the driver peeled rubber leaving the neighborhood. The
crowd had already grown larger in front of the apartment building
because the word had spread that the television cameramen were
coming and no one wanted to miss his chance to be on the tube.
Especially the veterans of the civil rights riots who left their
liquor stores and their card games to come over and carry
signs.
When Ingrid came into the Plaza suite with Remo, Chiun said
nothing, but saw the boxy lump hidden inside her purse.
While she was in the bathroom, Remo said, "Wadson's dead. I got her out of there. She's staying with us
awhile."
"Good ting," Tyrone said. "She can sleep in my bed. She some
hunk of honkey."
"Lacks bulk," Chiun said.
"Hands off," Remo said to Tyrone.
"Sheeit," said Tyrone and went back to watching the rerun of
Leave it to Beaver, Chiun changed it to Sesame
Street.
While Remo had been at Wadson's apartment, the management had
installed a new telephone in the suite. And now, while Ingrid was
at the drugstore in the Plaza lobby, the phone rang.
"Yeah," said Remo, expecting to hear Smith's voice.
"This is Speskaya," a voice said. There was something in the
voice that Remo remembered. But where? Who? The voice was not
accented but sounded as if it should have been. "I killed
Wadson."
"What do you want?" Remo asked.
"To offer you work. You and the Oriental gentleman."
"Sure. Let's talk about it," Remo said.
"That is just too easily said for me to believe you."
"Would you believe I want your job if I say I don't want it?"
Remo asked.
"Job?" Chiun said. He was sitting on the sofa. He looked toward
Remo. "Someone is offering us a job?"
Remo raised his hand to silence Chiun.
Speskaya said, "It is difficult to gauge your motives." The
voice was familiar, but Remo could not put it together with a
face.
"I can't help that," Remo said.
"What is the offer?" Chiun said.
Remo waved a hand to shush him.
"You work for a country which is breaking down,"
Speskaya said. "People are butchered in their homes. You, who
are no stranger to death, find that offensive. Why not come over
with us?"
"Look, let's stop mousing around. I've got a secret weapon you
want. I'll give it to you. You tell me about the secret weapons
you're working on and we'll be square and you can go back to
Russia," Remo said.
"Secret weapons? I'm working on?"
"Yeah. Two of them."
There was a long pause, then a boyish laugh over the telephone.
"Of course. Two secret weapons."
"What's so funny?" Remo said.
"Never mind," Speskaya said.
"Is it a deal?"
"No. The device you have is nothing but a low-level biofeedback
device that works off induction and is virtually without
worth."
"And your two secret weapons?" Remo said.
"They are of great worth. Great worth."
"I bet," said Remo.
"There is a club called The Iron Dukes on Walton Avenue. I will
meet you there tonight. I will tell you about my weapons and I will
expect your answer about working for us. Nine o'clock."
"I'll be there."
"The Oriental too."
"We'll be there," Remo said.
"Good thing, fella. Look forward to seeing you," Speskaya said.
And as the telephone clicked, Remo recognized the voice. It was
that jovial "fella" that did it. The man he had met at the
excavation at the Mueller's apartment, the man whose knee he had
banged up. Tony Spesk, alias Speskaya, Russian colonel and spy.
"Tonight," Remo said to Chiun, just as Ingrid came back into the
room. "We'll find out what two weapons he's working on."
"And then?"
"Then we get rid of him and that's that," Remo said.
"You have no idea what his special weapons are?" Chiun
asked.
Remo shrugged. "Who cares? More machinery."
"You are a fool," said Chiun.
A few moments later, Ingrid remembered something she had
forgotten at the drugstore. She went back downstairs and called a
number on a pay phone.
"Anthony," she said. "I just overheard. They plan to kill you
tonight."
"Too bad," Spesk said. "They would have been most valuable
additions to our arsenal."
"What now?" Ingrid asked.
"Use the white ring. And let me know how it works."
On Halsey Street in Newark, the burly black man found what he
was looking for. He had passed up two Volkswagens to find an
unlocked car big enough for him to sit in comfortably.
He opened the door of the new Buick and hunched over close to
the dashboard, bridging the ignition with a pair of alligator clips
he carried in his pocket. From his belt, he unhooked a huge ring of
keys, dwarfed by his big heavy hand, and sorted through them until
he found one that seemed right and put it in the ignition. He
turned it, the starter growled, and the motor started smoothly.
Big-Big Pickens drove into traffic with a smile on his face. He
was going home and getting those Saxon Lords straightened out.
Just turns his back, and some honkey and little old chink, they
been busting up the gang, and two of the leaders dead, and the
Reverend Wadson dead, and about time for all this nonsensery to
end. He patted the ice pick he carried in his hip pocket, its
business end stuck into a cork. On a whim
he removed it and slammed it deep into the car seat. And he smiled again.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
In the living room Remo had changed into a black tee shirt and
black slacks.
"Remo." Ingrid's voice was a soft call from the bedroom
door.
Remo nodded and stood. Chiun was wearing a thin black robe.
Tyrone still wore the same denim jacket, jeans, and dirty white tee
shirt he had worn for three days.
"We'll be leaving right away," Remo said, looking through the
window at nighttime New York. "But there's something to do
first."
The old man nodded.
Inside, Ingrid sat on the edge of the bed. She had just come
from the shower and wore only a thin blue satin robe.
"Must you go?" she said to Remo. With her faint European accent,
her voice sounded wistful and lost.
"Afraid so."
"That man is a bad man. He killed Josiah."
"You mean Spesk? Just another agent. No problem."
She put her hands up to Remo's arms and pulled him closer to
her, until his knees touched hers.
"I would be shattered if you were hurt… or…"
"Killed? I don't expect to be."
"But he is a killer."
"That's right, isn't it? And you saw him running away after he
killed Wadson."
Ingrid nodded. She trailed her hands around Remo's back until
they were at the base of his spine. She pulled him to her and
buried her face in his stomach.
"Yes." Her voice seemed choked. "I saw him. I will never forget
him."
"Tall, lean man. Thinning blond hair. Little scar over the left
eye."
He felt her head nod against his stomach. Then he felt her hands
at his waist, fumbling with the belt of his trousers.
"Remo," she said softly, "this may be strange, but in just these
few hours… there has come to be… I can't explain it.
You'll laugh."
"Never laugh at a woman in love," Remo said.
His trousers were open now and she busied her hands and her face
with his body.
Then she fell back onto the bed, her right hand holding his left
wrist and pulling him down to her.
"Come, Remo. Make love to me. Now. I can't wait."
The front of her robe fell open and Remo slipped down onto her
blond goddess body. Mechanically, he began sex. He felt her right
arm leave his wrist and reach up under the pillow at the headboard
of the bed. She put her left arm around his neck and pulled his
face down to her so he could not see what she was doing.
He felt the slight shift in her body weight as her right hand
returned toward her waist. He felt the fingers slide in between their stomachs and then he felt the constriction as
the hard white metal ring was placed on his body.
Remo pulled back and looked down at the white ring. Ingrid
reached again over her head and had the small black box in her
hand, with the red toggle switch in the center.
She smiled at him, a vicious smile that was as foreign to love
as it was to warmth.
"And now, the charade ends."
"As all good charades must," Remo said.
"Do you know what that ring is?"
"Some kind of pressure device, I guess," Remo said.
"As effective as a guillotine." She scootched herself up into a
sitting position in bed.
"Is this what you used on Wadson?" Remo asked.
"Yes. I used it all over his body. To mutilate him. He was
gross. You learn very quickly."
"No," said Remo. "I didn't learn. I knew."
It was time for Ingrid to be surprised. "You knew?"
"When you said you saw Spesk running" away after killing Wadson.
I broke Spesk's kneecap three nights ago. He isn't doing much
running these days."
"And yet you came in here? Like a lamb to slaughter?"
"I'm not exactly a lamb."
"You will be. A lamb. Or a gelding."
"What is it you want?" Remo asked.
"It is simple. You join Spesk and me. You work with us."
"I don't think so," Remo said.
"The old one would. I have heard him today. He would go wherever
the money is best. Why is he so reasonable and you so
unreasonable?"
"We're both unreasonable. Just in different ways," Remo
said.
"Then your answer is no."
"You got it, sweetheart."
She looked down at the red switch in her hand.
"You know what happens next, don't you?"
"Go ahead," Remo said. "But know this. You die. You can play
with your toy there and maybe hurt me but I'll have time to kill
you and you know I will. And you will die very slowly. Very
painfully."
His deep brown eyes that seemed to have no pupils met hers. They
stared at each other. She looked away, and as if backing down from
his stare had thrown her into a rage, she slammed her hand onto the
red toggle switch, pushing it all the way forward. Baring her teeth
and gums with lips twisted open in hatred, she looked up at
Remo.
He still knelt in the same place on the bed. His face showed no
emotion, no pain. Her eyes met his again and Remo laughed. He
reached onto the bed and picked up the two halves of the white
ring, split cleanly, like an undersized doughnut cut in two by a
very precise knife. He tossed them to her.
"Called muscle control, kid."
He stood up and zipped his trousers and fastened his belt.
Ingrid scurried across the bed and reached into her handbag on the
end table. She pulled out a small pistol and rolled toward Remo,
aiming the gun at him in an easy, unhurried motion.
As her finger began to tighten on the trigger, Remo picked up
half of the white ring and tossed it at her, skidding it off the
ends of his fingertips with enough force that it whirred as it
traveled the four feet to Ingrid.
Her finger squeezed the trigger just as the piece of the ring
hit the barrel of the gun with hammer force, driving the muzzle
upward under Ingrid's chin. It was too late for her brain to recall
the firing signal.
The gun exploded, one muffled shot, which ripped upward through
Ingrid's chin, passed through the bottom half of her skull, and
buried itself in her brain.
Eyes still open, lips still pulled back in a cat snarl of anger,
she dropped the gun and fell onto her side on the bed. The gun
clanked to the floor. A thin trail of blood poured from the bullet
wound in her chin, slipping down throat and shoulders until it
reached the blue satin of her robe which absorbed it and turned
almost black.
Remo looked at the dead body, shrugged casually, and left the
room.
In the living room, without turning from the window through
which he assayed New York City, Chiun said, "I'm glad that's over
with."
"Did ah hears a shot?" asked Tyrone.
"You sure do," said Remo. "Time to go."
"Go where?"
"You're going home, Tyrone."
"You lettin' me go?"
"Yeah."
"Good thing," said Tyrone, jumping to his feet. "So long."
"Not so quick. You're going with us," Remo said.
"Whuffo?"
"Just in case this big bear or whatever his name is is around. I
want you to point him out to me."
"He a big mean muvver. He kill me if he find out I finger him
for you."
"And what will I do?" Remo asked.
"Aw, sheeeit," said Tyrone.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
All the streetlights were out on the block which housed the Iron
Dukes' clubrooms.
Remo stood under one of the unworking lights and touched his toe
to the broken glass on the street. The block seemed weighted down
with summer dampness. All the building lights on the street were
out too and Tyrone looked around nervously.
"Ah don' like dis place," he said. "Too dark."
"Somebody made it that way for us," Remo said. "Are they there,
Chiun?"
"Yes," Chiun said. "Across the
street."
"How many of them?"
"Many bodies," Chiun said. "Perhaps thirty."
"Wha' you talkin' 'bout?" Tyrone asked.
"Tyrone," Remo explained patiently. "Somebody just busted all
the streetlights to make this block dark. And now whoever did it is
hiding around here, waiting… don't look around like that, you dip… hiding around here
waiting for us."
"Ah don' like dat," Tyrone said. "What's we gone do?"
"What we're going to do is Chiun and I are going up to see
Spesk. You're going to stay down here and see if you see Big-Big
whatsisface. And when I come down, you point him out to me."
"Ah don' wanna."
"You better," Remo said. They left Tyrone standing at the curb
and followed a small single light upstairs into a large office that
had a desk at the far end of the room.
Behind the desk sat Tony Spesk, good old Tony, appliance
salesman, Carbondale, Illinois, AKA Colonel Speskaya, NKVD. His
gooseneck lamp was twisted so it shone in his visitors' faces.
"We meet again," Spesk said. "Ingrid is dead, of course."
"Of course," Remo said. He took a few steps forward into the
room.
"Before you try anything foolish," Spesk said, "I should advise
you that there is an electronic eye in this room. If you attempt to
reach me, you will break the beam and set off a crossfire of
machine guns. Do not be foolish."
Chiun looked at the walls of the vacant room and nodded. On the
left wall, there were electric eye units starting six inches above
the floor, and then one each foot higher until they stopped eight
feet above the floor, one foot below the ceiling. He nodded to
Remo.
"Now, have you considered my offer?" Spesk said.
"Yes. Considered and rejected," Remo said.
"That's a shame," said Spesk. "I would not have thought you were
patriots."
"Patriotism has nothing to do with it," said Remo. "We just
don't like you people."
"Russians have been worthless since the time of Ivan the Great,"
said Chiun.
"The Terrible, you mean," Spesk said.
"The Great," Chiun insisted.
"He paid on time," Remo explained.
"Well, then I guess there's nothing more to talk about," Spesk
said.
"One thing," said Remo. "These two weapons you're after. What
are they?"
"You don't know, do you?" asked Spesk after a pause.
"No," said Remo.
"The old man knows though. Don't you?"
Remo looked over to see Chiun nod.
"Well, if you know so much, Chiun, why didn't you tell me?" Remo
asked.
"Sometimes it is easier to talk to Tyrone," Chiun said.
"Tell me now. What two weapons?" Remo said.
"You," said Chiun. "And me."
"Us?" Rerno said.
"We," Chiun said.
"Sheeit. All this for that."
"Enough," said Spesk. "We cannot deal and that is that. You may
leave and later I will leave. And perhaps we will meet again
someday."
"We're the weapons you wanted?" Remo asked again.
Spesk nodded, his thin blond hair splashing about his face as he
did.
"You're a jerk," Remo said.
"Time now for you to leave," Spesk said.
"Not yet," Remo said. "You understand it's nothing personal but,
well, Chiun and I don't like too many people to know about what
work we do and who we work for. And you know a little too
much."
"Remember the electric eyes," Spesk said confidently.
"Remember the Alamo," said Remo. He rocked back onto his left
foot, then moved forward toward the invisible strings of light
reaching from left wall to right wall. Three feet before reaching
the beams, he turned toward the wall, reached up high with his
right foot, followed with his left foot and launched his body
upward. His stomach came within an eighth of an inch of hitting the
ceiling as he turned onto his back, floating over the topmost beam
as if it were the bamboo pole at a high-jump event. Then Remo was
over the lights, onto Spesk's side of the room. He landed on his
feet soundlessly.
The Russian colonel's eyes opened wide in shock and horror. He
got heavily to his feet behind the desk, his left knee still
defective where Remo had damaged it.
He moved away from Remo.
"Listen," he said. His Chicago middle-America accent had
vanished. He spoke now with the thick guttural rasp of a native
Russian. "You don't want to kill me. I'm the only one who can get
you out of here alive. It's a trap."
"We know that," Remo said. "We'll take our chances."
He moved toward Spesk and Spesk dove for the desk drawer. His
hand was into the drawer closing around a gun, when Remo snatched
up the gooseneck lamp from the desk and looped it over Spesk's
head, around his throat, and yanked him back from the revolver. He
tied the gooseneck in one large knot and dropped Spesk's body to
the floor. So much for the Russian spies; so much for the secret
weapons.
As Remo was vaulting back over the electric eyes, now visible in
the pitch-black room, he said, "Why didn't you tell me, Chiun?
About the weapons?"
"Who can explain anything to a white man?" Chiun said. He was
already at the door and going down the steps.
Except for the sucking of air by people who didn't know how to
breathe correctly, the street outside the Iron Dukes' was silent
when Remo and Chiun came through the door and stood on the
sidewalk.
"Still say thirty?" Remo asked.
Chiun cocked his head to listen. "Thirty-four," he said.
"That's not bad. I hope one of them is the one I want. Where the
hell is Tyrone?" Remo said.
"One of the thirty-four," Chiun said, just as they heard a roar.
Tyrone's roar.
"There they are. Get dem. Get dem. Dey kidnap me and
everyfing."
Like predatory animals whose coats blended in with the grass,
the black youths of the Saxon Lords rose up out of their protective
coloration of night and with a full-throated roar charged across
the street toward Remo and Chiun.
"When I get that Tyrone," Remo said, "I'm going to fix him
good."
"Back on that, are you?" Chiun said, just as the first wave of
attackers reached them, brandishing clubs and chains, knives and
tire irons.
Chiun blended a four-armed lug wrench into the thoracic cavity
of one bruiser and drifted to the left, his black robe swirling
about him, as Remo went toward the right.
"Damned right," Remo called. "He needs a good lesson. Where are
you, Tyrone?"
The air was filled with rocks being thrown by the Saxon Lords,
hitting only other Saxon Lords. One thought he saw Remo drifting by
him and slashed out wildly with his seven-inch bladed hunting
knife, neatly severing the carotid artery of his cousin.
"Where the hell is he?" Remo's voice rang out. "Now I know how
Stanley felt looking for Livingstone."
Remo ducked under one flailing tire iron and came up with the
tips of his fingers into a throat.
He went around two more of the gang who had started to fight
with each other because one had stepped on the other's new
platforms and scuffed the leather.
"Tell me if you see Tyrone," Remo said.
"Tyrone, he back dere," said one of the young men, just before
his head was laid open by a chain swung by his comrade-in-arms.
"Thank you," Remo said. To the other he said, "Good form."
He was in the heart of the gang now, moving away from the Iron
Dukes' building, working slowly across the street.
And on the sidewalk across the street, Big-Big Pickens saw the
Saxon Lords disorganized and dropping. He craned his neck to look
over the crowd but could see no sign of the white man or the old
Oriental. But every few seconds, two more Saxon Lords would drop
and he could tell where they had been.
He decided that Newark was really nice this time of year and
stuck his icepick back into the protective cork and put it into his
rear pocket, then turned and walked away.
"There you are, Tyrone," Remo said. Tyrone was standing alone at
the fringe of the crowd. "You've got one helluva nerve."
Tyrone put his hands up to protect himself, just as Chiun
arrived.
"Here I thought we were friends and all," Remo said.
"We is. I just findin' Big-Big for you. Dere he goes."
Tyrone pointed to a huge black figure running down the
street.
"Thanks, Tyrone. Chiun, you keep an eye on him."
Remo was off then, running after Big-Big Pickens.
The big man heard the roar of the street fight behind him and
glanced over his shoulder. He felt a tingle of fear in his
shoulders as he saw the thin white man, wearing the black slacks
and tee shirt, running after him, gaining on him. Then he
stopped.
He nothing but some skinny honkey, he thought. He ducked into an
alley, moving back into the shadows, waiting for Remo to enter. He
took his pick from his pocket and held it over his head, ready to
bring it down into the base of Remo's skull when he entered the
alley.
He heard Remo's footsteps approaching on the run. Big-Big
coughed, with a smile on his face, just to let the white man know
where he was. In case he hadn't seen Pickens enter the alley.
The running stopped. And then there was no sound.
Pickens pressed his back against the brick wall of the building,
waiting for Remo to be silhouetted in the dim light at the alley's
entrance. But he saw nothing.
He waited a few long seconds that seemed like minutes, and then
took a step away from the wall. Remo must be lurking outside the
alley waiting for him to come out. Well, they would see who would
outwait the other, he thought.
Big-Big Pickens felt a small touch on his shoulder. He wondered
what it was. It turned into a tap.
Pickens wheeled around. Remo was standing there, a broad smile
on his face.
"Looking for me?" he asked.
Big-Big recoiled in shock, then slashed down with the icepick he
remembered holding over his head. Remo moved back slightly,
seemingly no more than an inch or two, but the pick missed.
"You're Pickens?" Remo said.
"Yeah, mufu."
"You're the one who did in the old lady? Mrs. Mueller?"
"Yeah. Ah did it."
"Tell me. Was it fun? Did you enjoy it?"
"Nots much fun as giving you dis," said Pickens, running forward
like a bull, the pick held close to his stomach, waiting to close
on Remo so he could bring one heavy hand up and bury the point deep
into Remo's belly.
He looked up and stopped. He could not see the white man. Where
was he? He turned. The man was behind him.
"You're really garbage, you know that?" Remo said.
"Ah garbages yo", said Big-Big, charging again.
Remo moved out of his way and tripped the huge man. Pickens
sprawled across the alley. The rough concrete surface scratched his
cheek.
"You know," Remo said, standing over Pickens. "I don't think I
really like you. On your feet."
Big-Big got to his knees and put a hand down to steady himself
and lift himself to his feet.
Then he felt a foot smash into his broad nose. He could hear the
bones crack and a whoosh of blood come pouring down through his
nostrils.
His head snapped backward but he recovered and got to his
feet.
"You're the big pick man on the block, huh?" Remo said. "Is your
pick as sharp as this?"
And Pickens felt what seemed to be a knifeblade in the left side
of his stomach. He looked down for the blood, but he saw nothing.
Only the white man's hand slowly pulling away. But the pain. The
pain. It felt like a hot poker was lying on his skin, and he knew
that hurt, because he had done it to someone one night.
"As sharp as that?" Remo taunted.
Holding his icepick, Pickens turned, flailing about with his
right arm, trying to find his tormentor.
But Remo was behind him. And Pickens heard the voice again,
mocking him. "As hard as this?"
And there was a blow into Pickens's back. He could feel it
stowing in his ribs on the right. And then it was repeated on the
left side and more ribs went.
"Did the old lady scream when you killed her, Pig-Pig?" Remo
asked. "Did she scream like this?"
He tried not to but the pain in his neck demanded nothing but a
scream. There were fingers on his neck and they felt as if they
were tearing through his skin and flesh to get to his adam's apple,
Pickens screamed. And screamed again.
"Do you think it hurt this bad, Pig-Pig? When you killed
her?"
He wheeled around, his hands clutching out in front of him, but
they grabbed nothing. His arms closed on empty air. He felt himself
being propelled backwards and he crashed into the brick wall like
an overripe tomato and slithered to the concrete. His icepick fell
from his hand and clattered onto the ground.
There was a terrible pain where his right leg used to be. He
tried to move it, but the leg no longer responded. And there was
more pain as his left leg gave way with a snap. And then his
stomach felt as if it were being torn apart by rats; he could feel
what seemed like giant pieces of it being torn away, and he
screamed, a long, long, lingering scream that celebrated agony and
welcomed death.
And then there was a white face right in front of him and it was
leaning close to him, and it said, "You killed her with the pick,
animal, and now you're going to learn what it was like."
And then there was a ringing black starshine of pain at his left
eye where the icepick was stuck. He could not see left anymore. And
then the pain stopped and the big black man fell forward, his head
smashing onto the concrete of the alley with a dull empty thud. The
last thing he'd seen was that the white man had clean
fingernails.
Remo spat down at the body and stepped out of the alley, back
onto the sidewalk as a car came roaring down the street past him.
It was followed by two more cars.
Remo looked down the street where the Saxon Lords were involved
in a massive free-for-all, as it was suddenly illuminated by the
onrushing headlights. Coming down the block the other way were
three more automobiles.
The cars screeched to a stop and men jumped out. Remo could see
they were carrying weapons. And then he heard a familiar voice. It
was Sergeant Pleskoff.
"All right. Shoot 'em. Shoot the bastards. Shoot 'em right in
the whites of their goddam eyes. We'll show 'em. America's had
enough of this goddam violence. Kill 'em all. No survivors."
Remo was able to pick Pleskoff out. He was waving his arm over
his head in a passable imitation of Errol Flynn's passable
imitation of General Custer. He was wearing civilian clothes. So
were the other dozen men who began firing into the mob with Police
Specials and, shotguns.
Then Chiun was at Remo's side, with Tyrone in tow. Tyrone was
looking back over his shoulder as the streets began to fill up with
fallen bodies.
"Did you want him?" Chiun asked Remo.
"No. Not any more," said Remo.
Tyrone turned toward Remo, his eyes wide with fright.
"Ah doan wan' go back there."
"Why not?"
"It gettin' dangerous on de streets aroun' here," Tyrone said.
"Can ah hang out wif you?"
Remo shrugged. Down the street the orgy of bulleting was slowing
down. The screams were dying away. Few people were left standing.
Pleskoff's voice kept roaring: "Shoot 'em all. We'll straighten
this town out."
Chiun turned toward the voice also.
"I've created a goddam Wyatt Earp," Remo said.
"It is always the way when a man deals in vengeance," Chiun
said. "Always the way."
"Always the way," Remo repeated.
"Allus de way," Tyrone said.
"Shut up," Remo said.
"Shut up," Chiun said.
Back at the Plaza, Chiun fished into one of his large lacquered
trunks for a scroll of parchment and a bottle of ink and a large
quill pen.
"What are you doing?" Remo asked.
"Writing for the history of Sinanju," Chiun said.
"About what?"
"About how the Master brought wisdom to his disciple by teaching
him that vengeance is destructive."
"Be sure to write that it feels good too," Remo said.
He watched as Tyrone peered over Chiun's shoulder and then,
behind Chiun's back, looked into the open trunk.
Chiun began writing. "You must see, Remo, that it would have
done nothing to act vengefully against Tyrone. He is not
responsible. There is nothing he can do about what he is."
Tyrone at that moment was slipping out the front door of the
apartment.
"I'm glad you feel that way," Chiun," Remo said.
"Ummmm," the old man said, writing. "Why?"
"Because Tyrone just beat it with one of your diamond
rings."
The quill pen flew upwards and stuck in the plaster ceiling. The
bottle of ink flew off in another direction. Chiun dropped the the
parchment scroll and moved quickly to his feet to the trunk. He
bent forward, burying his head inside it, then stood up. His face
was pale as he turned to Remo.
"He did. He did."
"He went thataway," Remo said, pointing to the door. But before
he finished the sentence, Chiun was already out into the hall.
It was 11:30 p.m. Time to call Smith at the special 800 area
code number that was open only twice a day.
"Hello," said Smith's acid-soaked voice.
"Hi, Smitty. How's it going?"
"I presume you have a report to make," Smith said.
"Just a minute." Remo covered the mouthpiece of the telephone.
Outside the door, down the hallway near the elevator, he could hear
thumping. And groans. And somebody weeping. Remo nodded.
"Yeah," Remo said. "Well, Spesk is dead. The guy who killed Mrs.
Mueller is dead. There are at least a dozen New York City cops who
are beginning to do something about criminals. All in all, I'd say
a fair day's work."
"What about…"
"Just a minute," Remo said as the door to the suite opened. In
walked Chiun, polishing his diamond ring on the black sleeve of his
kimono, blowing on it, then polishing.
"You got it back," Remo said.
"Obviously."
"No vengeance, I hope," Remo said.
Chiun shook his head. "I suited the punishment to the crime. He
stole my diamond; I stole his ability to steal again for a long
time?'
"What'd you do?"
"I reduced his finger bones to putty. And warned him that if I
ever saw him again, I would not treat him so kindly."
"I'm glad you weren't vengeful, Little Father. Be sure to put
that in your history."
Chiun scooped up the parchment scroll and dumped it into the
lacquered chest. "I don't feel like writing anymore tonight."
"There's always tomorrow." Remo turned his attention back to the
telephone. "You were saying, Smitty?"
"I was asking. What about Spesk's two deadly weapons? Did you
find them?"
"Of course. You asked me to, didn't you?"
"Well?"
"Well what?" asked Remo.
"What are they?" Smith asked.
"You can't have them," Remo said.
"Why not?" Smith said.
"Some things just aren't for sale," Remo said. He pulled the
telephone cord from the wall and collapsed back on the couch.
Laughing.
REVISION HISTORY
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