Chinese Puzzle

CHAPTER NINE

Ricardo deEstrana y Montaldo y Ruiz Guerner had told his visitor that $70,000 was not enough.

"Impossible," he said, strolling to his patio, his velvet slippered feet moving silently over the fieldstone. He walked to its edge and rested his breakfast champagne on the stone ledge separating him from his acres of rolling gardens that became forest, and beyond that, the Hudson River about to be enveloped in the glorious bright colors of fall.

"Just impossible," he said again, and breathed deeply the grape-scented breeze coming from his arbors nestling in the New York hills, good wine country because the vines must fight for survival among the rocks. How like life, that its quality was a reflection of its struggle. How true of his vineyards, which he personally supervised.

He was well into middle age, yet exercise and the good life left him remarkably trim and his continental manners and immaculate dress provided his bed with constant companionship. When he wanted. Which was always before and after, but never during the harvest.

Now, this grubby little woman with a purse full of money, obviously some sort of Communist affiliate, and more than likely just a messenger, wanted him to risk his life for $70,000.

"Impossible," he said for the third time and lifted the glass from the hard rock edge of his patio. He held it to the sun as a thank you and the tinted bubbling liquid glistened, as if honored to be chosen for an offering to the sun.

Ricardo deEstrana y Montaldo y Ruiz Guerner did not face his guest, to whom he did not offer champagne just as he had not offered her a seat. He had met her in his den, heard her proposition, and declined it. Yet she did not leave.

Now he heard her heavy shoes follow him, clomping out onto his patio.

"But $70,000 is more than twice what you get ordinarily."

"Madame," he said, his voice cold with contempt. "Seventy thousands dollars is twice what I received in 1948. I have not been working since then."

"But this is an important assignment."

"For you perhaps. Not for me."

"Why won't you take it?"

"That is simply none of your concern, Madame."

"Have you lost your revolutionary fervor?"

"I have never had a revolutionary fervor."

"You must take this assignment."

He felt her breath behind him, the intense heat of a nervous sweaty woman. You could feel her presence in the pores of your skin. That was the curse of sensitivity, the sensitivity that made Ricardo deEstrana y Montaldo y Ruiz Guerner percisely Ricardo deEstrana y Montaldo y Ruiz Guerner. Once, at $35,000 a mission.

He sipped his champagne, allowing his mouth to surrender to its vibrancy. A good champagne, not a great one. And unfortunately, not even an interesting champagne although champagnes were notoriously uninteresting anyway. Dull. Like the woman.

"The masses have bled for the success which is imminent. The victory of the proletariat over the oppressive, racist capitalist system. Now join us in victory or die in defeat."

"Oh, piffle. How old are you, Madame?"

"You mock my revolutionary ardor?"

"I am shocked at a grownup's addiction to it. Communism is for people who never grow up. I take Disney-land more seriously."

"I cannot believe that you would say such a thing, you who have fought the fascist beast."

He turned to examine the woman more closely. Her face was lined with years of rage, her hair cast scraggly in many directions beneath a plain black hat that could use a cleaning. Her eyes seemed tired and pld. It was a face that had lived through a lifetime of arguments about the absurdities of dialectical materialism and class consciousness, far from where human beings lived their lives. She was about his age, he believed, yet appeared old and worn as though beyond the reach of even a spark of life.

"Madame, I fought the fascist beast, and so, am qualified to speak on it. It is identical to the communist beast. A beast is a beast. And my revolutionary fervor died when I saw what was supposed to replace the oppression of fascism. It was the oppression of such dullards as yourself. To me, Stalin, Hitler and Mao Tse Tung are identical."

"You have changed, Ricardo."

"I should hope so, Madame. People do grow up, unless stunted by some mass movement or other group sickness. I take it you knew me before?"

"You do not remember me?" Her voice, for the first time, wore some warmth.

"No, I do not."

"You do not remember the seige at Alcazar?"

"I remember that."

"You do not remember the battle at Teruel?"

"I remember that."

"And you do not remember me?"

"I do not."

"Maria Deloubier?"

The champagne glass shattered on the fieldstone terrace. Guerner's face paled.

"Maria," he gasped. "You?"

"Yes."

"Gentle, sweet Maria. No."

He looked at the haggard, cold face with the old eyes and he still could not see Maria, the young woman who believed and loved, who had reached out each morning for the sunshine as she reached out for a new world.

"Yes," said the old woman.

"Impossible," he said. "Time does not ravage like that, without leaving a trace."

"When you give your life to something, your life goes with it."

"No. Only if you give your life to something without life." Ricardo deEstrana y Montaldo y Ruiz Guemer gently placed his left hand on the woman's shoulder. He could feel the coarseness of the material, over the hardness of the bone.

"Come," he said. "We will eat. And we will talk."

"Will you do this thing for us, Ricardo? It is so important."

"We will talk, Maria. We have much to talk about."

Reluctantly, the woman agreed, and during the morning repast of fruit and wine and cheese, she answered questions about where she went after this cell collapsed, or that revolution succeeded, or this agitation failed or that one succeeded.

And Guemer discovered where Maria had fled, leaving only this passionless woman before him. Maria was the classic revolutionary, so involved with masses and power structures and political awareness that she forgot human beings. People became objects. Positive responses meant Communists, negative responses meant not Communist.

So it was easy for her to lump Nazis together with monarchists, democrats, republicans, capitalists. To her they were aU alike. They were "them." He also found that she had never remained in a country where her revolutionary efforts were successful. Those who dream most of the promised land are the ones most afraid to cross its borders.

Maria had softened as she shared the wine. "And what of you, Ricardito?"

"I have my vines, my estate, my land."

"No man owns land."

"I own this land as much as any man owns anything. I have changed this land and these changes are mine. Its beauty is nature. Which I might add does very well without the help of a revolutionary committee."

"You no longer use your skill?"

"I use it in different ways. Now I create."

"When you left us, you worked for others also, no?"

"Sometimes."

"Against the revolution?"

"Of course."

"How could you?"

"Maria, I fought for the loyalists for the same reason many fought for the fascists. It was the only war around at the time."

"But you believed. I know you believed."

"I believed, my dear, because I was young. And then I grew up."

"I hope then that I never grow up."

"You have grown old without growing up."

"That is unkind. But I would expect that of someone who could pour a life into a hillside instead of giving it to mankind."

Guerner threw back his leonine head and laughed.

"Really. That is just too much. You ask me to kill a man for $70,000 and you call it serving mankind."

"It is. It is. They are a counter-revolutionary force that we have been unable to overcome."

"Does it not strike you as odd that they sent you to me with the money?"

"You once had a reputation."

"But why now?"

The woman cupped her harsh reddish hands around the goblet as she had done when she was young and soft and beautiful, when the wine was not that good.

"All right, Ricardito. We will follow your thinking because you are the only one capable of thinking. And everyone else, especially a committee, cannot match your wisdom."

"Your organization has many people who effectively eliminate others. True?"

"True."

"Then why after more than 20 years must they choose a mercenary? Do they think I would not speak if captured? Absurd. Or do they plan to kill me afterwards? Why bother? They could get someone else, for much less than $70,000. Someone more politically reliable and less likely to need extermination. True?"

"True," said Maria, drinking more of the wine and feeling its warmth.

"They obviously * chose me because they know they might not succeed with their own people. And how would they know this? Because they have tried before and failed. True?"

"True."

"How many times have they tried?"

"Once."

"And what happened?"

"We lost eight men."

"They seem to have forgotten my specialty in the assassination of one man. At the most, two."

"They are not forgetful."

"Why then do they expect me to attack a company?"

"They do not. It is a man. His name, as best as we can learn, is Remo."

"He killed eight men?"

"Yes."

"With what weapon? He must be very fast and select his range of fire brilliantly. And of course, he is accurate."

"He used his hands as near as we can tell."

Guerner put down Ms goblet. "His hands?"

"Yes."

He began to chuckle. "Maria, my dear. I would have done it for $35,000. He is perfect for my weapon. And easy."

Ricardo deEstrana y Montaldo y Ruiz Guerner threw back his head again and laughed. "With his hands," he said. "A toast to a man who is fool enough to use his hands." They toasted again but the woman took merely a formal sip.

"One more thing, Ricardo."

"Yes?"

"I must accompany you."

"Impossible."

"They wish to make sure that everything is done neatly. There is a Chinese girl who is not to be killed. Just the man and possibly his elderly companion."

She withdrew a picture from the purse she had kept on her arm all the while, even while eating.

"These are the men to die. The Caucasian definitely. And this girl is to live."

Guerner took the photograph between two fingers. It was obviously shot from above, with a telephoto lens. Because of the absence of depth of field and the obvious fluorescent lighting which would allow an f.4 opening, "Guerner estimated the lens to be.200 millimeter.

The Oriental man was elderly, his wraithlike arms waving above Mm in gesture to the young girl. Behind him came the younger Occidental with the look of frustration. His eyes were deepset, his cheekbones slightly high, his lips thin and his nose strong but not large. Average build.

"The Oriental is not Korean?"

"No. She is Chinese."

"I mean the man."

"Let me see," said Maria, taking back the picture.

"I don't know," she said.

"No doubt they all look alike to you, my revolutionary friend."

"Why does it matter?"

"It would matter if he were a certain type of Korean. But that is doubtful. Keep the picture. I have it in my mind."

He whistled gently that afternoon as he removed a long tubular black leather case from the locked safe behind his family's coat of arms.

With a chamois cloth, he polished up the rich blackness of the leather, then folded the cloth and put in on the oak desk by the window. He placed the leather case beside the cloth. The afternoon sun made white flashes on the leather. Guerner placed a hand on either side of the case, and with a snap, it opened, revealing a Monte Carlo stock made of highly glossed walnut, and a black metal rifle barrel two feet long.

They rested on purple velvet, like machined jewels for the elegance of death.

"Hello, darling," whispered Guerner. "We work again. Do you wish to? Have you rested too long?"

He stroked the barrel with the tips of his right fingers.

"You are magnificent," he said. "You have never been readier."

"You still talk to your weapon?" Maria was laughing.

"Of course. Do you think a weapon is purely mechanical? Yes, you would. You think people are mechanical. But it is not. They are not."

"I only asked. It seemed… somehow… strange."

"It is stranger, my dear, that I have never missed. Never. Is that not strange?"

"It is training and skill."

Blood rushed to Guerner's aristocratic face, filling the cheeks like a child's coloring book.

"No," he said angrily. "It is feeling. One must feel his weapon and his bullet and his target. He must feel it is correct to shoot. And then the path of the bullet is correct. Those who miss do not feel their shots, do not carefully insert them into then: target. I do not miss, because I feel my shots into my victim. Nothing else is important. The wind, the light, the distance. All are meaningless. You would more easily miss picking your cigarette up from the ashtray than I would miss my target."

Guerner then began his ritual, leaving the weapon unassembled in the case. He sat at the desk and rang for his butler by pulling a cloth cord that hung from the high beamed ceiling.

He hummed softly as he waited, not looking at Maria. She could never understand. She could not feel. And not feeling, she could not learn how to live.

The door opened and the butler entered.

"Thank you, Oswald. Please bring me my supplies." Only seconds later, the butler reentered bearing another black leather case, similar to a doctor's bag.

As he carefully emptied the bag onto the desk, Guerner spoke. "Those who buy ammunition and expect uniformity are incredibly foolish. They buy approximation and therefore attain approximation. The expert must know each bullet."

He picked up a dullish gray slug from the desk and rubbed it between his fingers, feeling his finger oil coat the projectile. He stared at the bullet, absorbing its feel and its shape and weight and temperature. He placed it before him at the right of the desk. He picked up dozens of slugs, one at a time, putting most of them back into the black leather bag, and finally choosing four more which he placed with the first.

From a small wooden box on the desk, he selected a cartridge casing, held it momentarily, then replaced it. He took another, held it, rolled it between his fingers, and smiled.

"Yes," he murmured, and placed it with the slugs. He continued until he had five. "Perfect," he said. "Created to be joined together. Like man and woman. Like life and death."

With a small silver spoon, he began to ladle a white powder carefully into each cartridge. It swished in silently, a few grains at a time, giving each shell its explosive charge. When he had finished, he delicately placed a slug into the open end of each shell, and then placed them one at a time into a chrome plated device, which sealed them with a faint click.

"Now the cartridge, the bullet, the powder are one. Along with the maker. We will soon be ready."

Lifting the rifle barrel carefully from the case, he held it silently before him, peered through it, then put it down. He lifted out the stock, hefting it, holding it in firing position at his shoulder. With a soft murmur of approval, he placed the barrel on top of the stock and with a specially-tooled wrench began joining the two.

He stood up, extending his weapon from him in one hand. "We are done," he said, and inserted a bullet into the chamber, and pushed forward the bolt with a click.

"Only five bullets? Will that be enough for this job?"

"There are only two targets. Two bullets are enough for this job. The other three are for practice. My weapon and I have been inactive for so long. Get the binoculars. Behind you. On the shelf."

Guerner moved to the window, looking out over his valley, rolling lawns in front, the last blooming garden off to his right. The autumn sun was dying red over the Hudson beyond, bathing the valley in blood.

Maria picked up the 7x35 Zeiss Ikon binoculars from the shelf and noticed there was dust on the lenses. Strange. He worshipped that rifle as if a woman, and let a fine pair of binoculars gather dust. Well, he had once been very good.

She walked to the open window by him and felt the late afternoon chill. A bird sang harshly off in the distance. She wiped the binocular lenses clean on her sleeve and did not notice that this drew a glance of contempt from Guerner.

He looked forward out the window. "Two hundred yards from here," he said,-pointing, "there is a small furry animal. I cannot see it too clearly."

She raised the binoculars to her eyes. "Where?"

"About ten yards to the left of the corner of the stone wall."

She focused on the wall and was surprised that through the lenses, the wall appeared better lit than to her naked eyes. She remembered this was characteristic of good binoculars.

"I can't see it," she said.

"It's moving. Now it's still."

Maria scanned the wall, and there perched on its hind legs, its forelegs tucked in front as though begging, was a chipmunk. She could barely make it out.

"I know what you're doing," she said, still looking. "You know little animals are always on that wall and when you shoot it will hide and you will say you shot it."

Maria felt the crack of the rifle at her left ear, just before she saw the chipmunk spin over as though slapped in the head with a paddle, a ball of orange fur bouncing backwards, rolling out of sight behind the wall, then rolling into sight again, the legs just as they had been, but without a head. The legs quivered. The white patch on the stomach still pulsated.

"That bird," said Guerner quietly and Maria again heard the painful crack of the rifle, and suddenly in a flock of dark birds far in the distance, perhaps 300 yards, one dropped. And she did not lift her binoculars because she knew its head was gone too.

"Another chipmunk," Guerner said, and the rifle cracked, and Maria saw nothing, partly because she had, stopped looking.

"It is only possible if the target is alive," Guerner said. "That is the secret. One must sense the life of the target. One must feel it move into the orbit of your life. And then, there can be no miss."

He clutched his rifle to his chest, as though thanking the instrument.

"When do we perform against this fool this Remo who uses only his hands?" he asked.

"Tomorrow morning," Maria said.

"Good. My weapon can hardly wait." He squeezed it tenderly in his two large hands. "The target, the living target, gives itself to you. We want the living target to do it with. The secret is that you do it with the victim." His voice was smooth and deep and vibrant. As it had been 30 years before, Maria remembered, when they had made love.