Power Play

Chapter four

Theodosia had taken over the entire east wing of the Furlong General Hospital and turned it into a fortress for Wesley Pruiss.

Contractors had been hurriedly hired to seal off all the connections between the main hospital and the new east wing. Meanwhile other contractors were bolting solid steel plates over the doors and windows.

When the job was done, there was only one way to enter the east wing. From the downstairs ground level entrance door, which was locked and guarded twenty-four hours a day by one of the Furlong County police, there was no way to get out of the stairwell before the top floor where Wesley Pruiss lay in a bed in the only room in the wing that was occupied.

Inside the stairwell, outside the top floor, stood a mercenary colonel who had grown famous for his exploits leading men in African wars. He carried a small submachine gun and an auto-Mag pistol.

He had been the first of three bodyguards hired by Theodosia.

Behind the door the colonel guarded and patrolling the ten feet of distance from the hall door to Pruiss's room was a man who had been the world's middleweight karate champion. He could drive his foot through a plaster wall. His hands were gnarled and hard enough to drive nails. He was the second bodyguard.

The third was a former Olympic champion in small arms fire, a consultant in weaponry to the Los Angeles and New York police departments.

All the windows of Wesley Pruiss's room had been blocked off with steel plates, except for one that caught the morning sun. The window opened onto a fire escape and through it Pruiss was able to see the country club building that had been his home and the Furlong County golf course. On the fire escape of Pruiss's room, the small arms expert watched the roof above, the ground below and the metal steps leading up the fire escape. He carried a .357 Magnum and a .22 caliber semi-automatic pistol.

As an extra precaution, the window behind him had been wired to administer a killing shock to anyone who tried to open it without the power being turned off from inside the room.

Each man was being paid two thousand dollars a week. Theodosia felt secure. No one was just going to walk into Wesley Pruiss's room and harm him. Not with these security precautions.

She stopped outside the clubhouse that was now the Pruiss mansion and picked some pink and red flowers. Her chauffeur let her off at the one working door to the hospital's east wing.

The policeman at the door recognized her, but according to instructions, he stayed behind the locked door until she repeated the password: "Grossis beautiful."

Only then did he let her into the downstairs hallway, quickly closing the door behind her. He checked her purse for weapons and then inspected the bunch of flowers. Only when he was satisfied that everything was in order, did he say, "Morning, Miss Theodosia."

"Morning. Everything quiet?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

She walked up the three double flights of stairs to the fourth floor. As she turned the corner of the steps near the top, she saw the mercenary colonel, wearing khaki battle gear, pointing a submachine gun at her.

"Morning, mum," he said in a crisp British accent.

He too checked her purse and flowers, then turned and knocked four times on the door leading to the corridor.

Theodosia smiled as she watched her professionals go through their professional extra-safe procedures.

She heard the door unlock from the inside. The colonel counted to six before opening it.

"If it opens right away," he explained to her, "the man inside will attack."

He pulled the door open and Theodosia went inside. The karate expert, wearing a loose-fitting gi and barefooted, was in an attack stance that relaxed only when he recognized Theodosia.

He too checked purse and flowers.

She smiled again. She pushed through the swinging door into Wesley Pruiss's room. The small arms expert was on the fire escape, looking down and up and around in a never-ending cycle of vigilance.

Wesley Pruiss was still asleep when she entered the room and Theodosia smiled when she saw the gentle, almost boyish look on his placid face. And then her eyes widened in shock.

There was a yellow tag on the front of Pruiss's pajamas. It had writing on it. She moved quickly to the side of his bed and looked down at the tag. It was the inside of a matchbook from which the striker had been torn. The note had been written with a black felt-tipped marker that lay alongside Pruiss's bed with his notepad.

The note read: "Your bodyguards stink." And there was a telephone number after it.

The note had been clipped to the lapel of Pruiss's pajamas with a safety pin and when she removed it, Pruiss woke up and saw her.

She pushed the yellow cardboard into her purse.

"Morning, love," Pruiss said.

She bent over to kiss him, then handed him the flowers. Without even a glance, he dropped them on the table next to his bed.

"I'm sorry I woke you up," she said.

"All right," he said. His voice was deep with despondency. "What else have I got to do but sleep?"

"Don't say that, Wesley. You're going to be as good as new."

"Yeah. As good as a new cripple can be," he said bitterly.

He turned away. When he looked back, he saw her still smiling at him, very bravely. As a reward, he smiled himself.

"Did you sleep well?" she asked.

"Why not? With all those guards you've got around here, who could wake me up?"

"No one came in to bother you?"

"No," Pruiss said. "I just wish somebody had. I wish that guy with the knife had come back and finished the job."

"I won't hear that, Wesley," said Theodosia, her face flushed with anger. "You're an important man. You're going to be even more important. The world can't afford the loss of a man like you."

"It's lost half of me already. The leg half. Don't kid me, Theodosia. I know hopeless when I see hopeless. So do the doctors. Spinal injury. Cripple."

"What do those doctors know?" she asked. "We'll get more doctors. Better doctors."

He thought about that for a moment, looking out the window at the bright sky.

"Maybe, you're right," he said. "You know, there are times when I feel that there's some life in my legs... like I could almost move them. Not much and not often. But once in a while."

He looked at Theodosia for some expression. He caught a brief flash of sorrow on her face that she turned into a smile as she said, "See. You never can tell." But her face told him a different story. It was hopeless and she knew it. He was a cripple, doomed to be a cripple for the rest of his life.

He closed his eyes and said nothing more. He opened his mouth to take the pain pills she gave him and he had nothing to say when she began arranging for an ambulance to take him from the hospital back to the country club where his master bedroom had been converted into a hospital room. But it felt good, even if he wouldn't admit it to her, to be out of the hospital and back to his home, even if it was a new home and one he had not yet had a chance to get used to.

When she went out in the early afternoon, Theodosia left the three bodyguards in his bedroom with orders to leave under no circumstances.

Before leaving the building, she fished the piece of yellow cardboard from her purse and telephoned the number on it.

Remo was lying on the bed in Room 15 of the Furlong Budget Value Dollar Motel when Theodosia rapped firmly on the door.

When he opened it he looked her up and down and asked, "Who are you? Not that it really matters all that much."

"You're the one who left the note?" Theodosia asked.

"Right. That's right," Remo said. "I saw you on television. Ambrosia or something."

"Theodosia."

"Come on in."

He went back to the bed while Theodosia sat on the couch.

"How did you get into that hospital room?" asked Theodosia.

"Don't answer that, Remo," Chiun said as he appeared in the doorway connecting Room 15 and his own Room 17.

"Why not?" Remo asked.

"Because she has not paid you anything and even if she had, we do not give our secrets away. We sell our performance but not knowledge of our techniques."

"Very wise," Theodosia said.

"Actually, it just sounds wise," Remo said. "Even if I told, you wouldn't understand the techniques."

"Try me," said Theodosia. There was a small smile on her face, the smile of a woman who had been underestimated many times before by men who thought that because she had enough chest for everybody, it automatically followed that she didn't have a brain in her head.

"All right," Remo said, holding back a smile of his own, "We saw the guard on the fire escape, the one in the stairwell, the one outside the door. Plus the slug guarding the front door. We only wanted to go into the room, not hurt anybody. So we didn't go any of those ways."

"So mystically we appeared, masked in the cloak of invisibility," said Chiun, with a warning glance at Remo.

Theodosia smiled at him. Chiun smiled back.

Remo shook his head. "No. We figured you had all the openings to the room covered but you didn't cover the non-openings, so we turned a non-opening into an opening."

He nodded to her.

"The windows," she said. "You got in through a window."

"You'll never know that," Remo said. "Now that'sa secret."

"But how did you get to a window? The roof is sealed off and there's only one fire escape up the side, and that one's guarded."

"Secret," Remo said.

"Yes," said Chiun. "Remo is right. It is very secret. We would like to tell you, young lady, but if we tell you, you will tell someone else and he will tell someone else and before you know it, everyone will know how to climb the sides of smooth walls and remove steel plates from over windows and then replace the plates on the way back down. So we cannot tell you."

"Thank you, Little Father," Remo said, "for not telling."

Chiun nodded his appreciation.

"How much?" Theodosia said.

"What are you paying those three blocks you've got now? I guess the cop on the front door is free."

Theodosia nodded. Chiun cleared his throat.

"A thousand a week each," Theodosia said.

"That means two thousand a week," Remo said.

Chiun cleared his throat again. Remo ignored him. "That's a total of six thousand a week," Remo said. "Since we're incalculably better than they are, we can't apply a percentage to it. But let's say, ten thousand a week."

"Too much," Theodosia said.

Chiun cleared his throat again and Remo looked at him in annoyance, before glancing back at the woman.

"Suit yourself," Remo said. "We can always go to work for the people who want to get rid of him."

"You know who they are?" the woman said warily. She had a pencil in her hand but she jabbed it angrily against her small note pad as she asked the question.

"No, but it shouldn't be hard to find them if we'd a mind to," Remo said. Chiun cleared his throat again.

"You think so?" said Theodosia.

"I know so," said Chiun, before Remo could answer. The old Oriental looked confidently at the young dark-haired woman.

"All right. Ten thousand a week. Guard Wesley and find out who's responsible for that attack on him."

Chiun raised a finger. "Not quite," he said, "Who pays for these hotel rooms?"

Theodosia looked around at the worn bedspread, the walked-thin carpet, the water-stained wallpaper near the door.

"All right," she said. "I'll throw in the rooms too."

"Fine," said Chiun. He looked triumphantly at Remo, then leaned closer to him. "See," he said in Korean, "how easily it all goes if you leave the negotiating to me."

In his halting Korean, Remo said, "Chiun, I would have gotten the same money. All you did was get us another job, finding out who hit Pruiss."

"I got us the hotel rooms paid for," Chiun said. His voice raised as he became excited.

"The rooms only cost us six dollars, for Chrissakes," Remo said. "You gave away an extra job for six dollars. No wonder Sinanju's a poor village."

"You speak terrible Korean," Chiun said. "I can't understand a word you say."

"I said I would have gotten the same money."

"You wouldn't have," Chiun insisted. "Negotiating is one of the special skills of Masters of Sinanju."

"Would," said Remo in English.

"Wouldn't," said Chiun.

Theodosia stood up.

"Why not come with me now?" she said.

Remo started off the bed.

"Not so fast," Chiun said.

"What now?" asked Remo.

"The hotel room keys," he said. "Give them to her." He pointed to Theodosia as if he expected her to run out of the room. She smiled at Remo who shrugged.

"Anything you say, Chiun. Anything you say," said Remo wearily.

Wesley Pruiss was drinking beer from a can when they arrived back at the country club. Theodosia sent the three bodyguards outside, then snatched the can of Rheingold Extra Light away from Pruiss.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey yourself," she said. "No drinking. You know that."

"What difference does it make?"

He saw Remo and Chiun standing at the foot of his bed. He had not heard them enter the room.

"Who are these guys?"

"Your new bodyguards."

Pruiss looked at them carefully, his face seemingly undecided between a scowl and a sneer. "Bodyguards. They look just about right to guard half a man."

"You were a half a man before you got hurt, Pruiss," Remo said.

"Is that how you talk to all your employers? What are we paying these guys?" he asked Theodosia.

"Remo, leave this to me," hissed Chiun. "Not nearly as much as we usually charge for such services," he told Pruiss quickly. "But we came along just for the pleasure of protecting such an enlightened person as you." He smiled and folded his hands inside the sleeves of his flowing green evening robe.

"You did, huh?" Pruiss's voice was still wary but his face showed satisfaction at the ego-stroking.

"Yes," said Chiun. "Would you like to hear my poetry?"

"No," said Pruiss.

"Some other time," Chiun said agreeably.

"I doubt it," Pruiss said.

"Don't doubt it," Remo said. "You're going to hear so much Ung poetry that you're going to be able to recite it, Pruiss. You'll learn it by heart. In Korean. You'll be able to give us three hours on a flower opening and two more hours on a bee landing on the flower. You'll be the life of the orgy."

"Don't give away the story," Chiun told Remo.

"Get these two out of here," Pruiss told Theodosia.

"Suits me," Remo said. "The only reason we'd even take this job is so you can go ahead and do your thing with solar energy. Sure as hell not because we like you."

Pruiss waved his hand, dismissing solar energy.

Remo waved his hand back.

"The hell with solar energy," Pruiss said. "I don't care if everybody freezes to death."

Theodosia stood alongside Pruiss, looking at Remo and Chiun. She said blandly, "I don't think Wesley really feels that way. It's just the strain of everything."

"Strain, my butt. That's the way I really feel," Pruiss said.

"Swell," said Remo. "Come on, Chiun, let's go."

After they had passed the guards in the hallway, Chiun asked Remo: "Why did you say that?"

"She pulls the strings," Remo said. "Let her work on him. It's better than us arguing with him."

They walked down the broad curved staircase of the old country club and out the front door into the pleasant spring night of Indiana.

At the end of the long driveway was a small street. Across the street stood the reconstructed tenement building.

"That is where it happened?" Chiun asked.

"Yes."

"I would see it."

The moonlight streamed in through the kitchen window and illuminated the kerosene lamp on the table. Remo went to light it with a match, while Chiun went unerringly toward the other end of the railroad apartment. When Remo had the light on, he turned to see Chiun crouched down, feeling the floor.

"This is where the assassin stood," Chiun said.

"How can you tell that?"

"Because he was here waiting for Pruiss. This is the only spot in this room where the floorboards do not creak. He could have stood here in perfect silence to wait his moment."

Remo nodded.

"A knife thrown from the blackness of night," Chiun said softly, more to himself than to Remo. "This is not good."

"Why?" Remo asked.

Chiun seemed to ignore the question as he rose and stared at the floor. "The man stood here," he said, "and waited for the big-mouthed one to enter the room. Then, across a distance of twenty feet, he threw a knife that almost took the life from Pruiss. But not quite. Now, he was alone with his victim. Did he then go to him to finish his task? No."

"Maybe something scared him off," Remo said.

"No," said Chiun.

"Why not?"

"He had time to go to his victim and remove the knife. All he had to do was to twist it and his victim would be dead and his mission accomplished. But he did not do that. He just removed the knife and fled. Why?"

Remo shrugged.

"Really, Remo. Sometimes you are very dense."

"I'm glad now it's only sometimes. Usually you tell me I'm always very dense."

"Have it your own way," Chiun said. "Remo, you are always very dense and never more so than now."

"All right. You tell me."

"Yes," said Chiun. "I do not think he meant to kill Wesley Pruiss, because otherwise he would have. And I think he had a reason for taking his knife."

"Not to leave fingerprints behind," Remo said.

"He could have just wiped the handle," said Chiun. "He took the knife so we would not see it. Why?"

"Who cares?"

"You should. He took it because it probably identifies him."

"Probably had one of those little tags printed on the handle: 'If found, drop in nearest mailbox. Norman Knifethrower will guarantee postage.'"

Chiun ignored him. He stood up straight and took a pose, left foot in front of his right, almost as if he were fencing an imaginary opponent. He rocked back and forth, transferring his weight from foot to foot. There was only silence in the flat as Remo watched.

"Remo," Chiun said. "Stand here."

He stepped aside as Remo walked over and stood.

"Now, rock from side to side."

Remo did as ordered. The floorboards squeaked beneath his feet.

Chiun sighed. "I have seen enough," he said. "It is time for us to leave."

"So who killed cock robin?" Remo asked.

"I will explain it all to you when you are capable of absorbing what I tell you. But let me warn you. We are facing a very dangerous man, very formidable. His skill is not greatly different from ours."

"You can tell all that by listening to the floor boards not squeak?"

"Everything hands over its secrets to one who demands them," Chiun said. "I can tell you something more too," he added as he started for the kitchen door. Remo blew out the kerosene lamp and followed him.

"Yeah? What's that?" Remo asked.

"The assassin will wear a thick black leather belt. The back of the belt will be filled with knives, knives with red leather handles. And near the bloodguard of each knife will be imprinted the outline of a rearing stallion."

And then he was walking down the stairs, shaking his head slowly from side to side. But when Remo caught up to him, Chiun would say no more. He said he wished to think.

There were two calls at the motel that night for Remo.

The first was Smith, who was dismayed when Remo told him that Wesley Pruiss was talking about dropping the solar energy project.

"We can't let that happen," Smith said dourly.

"It won't," Remo said. "Ruby back yet?"

"Not for another week."

"Tell her I got a new job for her if she wants it," Remo said.

"What is that?" Smith asked suspiciously.

"I know a guy. I can get her in as a Grossie Girl."

The second telephone call came from Theodosia.

"You know," she told Remo, "you're not as dumb as you look."

"I know," said Remo. "It's one of my crosses in life, people thinking I'm just another pretty-face."

"Anyway, I'm working on Wesley. I'll get him to change his mind on the solar power."

"I know you will," Remo said. "When?"

"Can you start in the morning?" she asked.

"Be there," Remo promised.

The early morning sun turned Furlong County into a picture postcard. It shone gold off the roofs of the small, neat buildings and almost whitened the fields of early wheat. The small fishing lakes glinted metallically, looking like pits of piled up diamonds. As the sun came over the trees, it sparkled off the dew the night had deposited on the practice putting green in front of the Furlong Country Club.

Pruiss was in the middle of the green, lying in a hospital bed. The imprints of its wheels had pressed deep into the tightly packed grass of the green.

The three bodyguards stood at three different points around the green, facing away from Pruiss. The mercenary colonel and small arms expert were carrying their favorite weapons. The karate man was carrying sirakens, the pointed silver throwing stars, and prowled nervously back and forth over about three feet of the green's perimeter.

Theodosia stood alongside Pruiss's bed, next to a dark-skinned man wearing a jeweled Nehru jacket and a turban with a red stone in the front of it.

As Remo and Chiun approached, the man grabbed the bottom of Pruiss's bed and rolled it around so that the rapidly-rising sun shone directly in Pruiss's eyes.

The mercenary colonel did not notice Remo and Chiun until they were standing next to him. His hand moved to the trigger guard on his gun.

"Easy," Remo said, "we're on the same team."

"Miss Theodosia," the man called in his brisk accent. She looked up and saw Remo and Chiun.

"It's all right, Colonel," she said.

The colonel relaxed his finger grip, but still looked suspiciously at Remo and Chiun. People who came upon him that silently could be up to no good.

"Who's the twerp?" Remo asked him.

"Don't know," the colonel said. "Some bleedin' Indian mystic, I hear."

Wesley Pruiss had the same question.

"Theodosia, who the hell is this?"

The little Indian spoke.

"Rachmed Baya Bam, at your service, sirrrr."

Pruiss ignored him.

"Theo, who is he?"

"He's the head of the Inner Light Movement," she said.

"I gave at the office," Pruiss said.

"Very funny," Rachmed Baya Bam said in his clipped, high pitched voice. "The sahib has a very keen sense of the humorous. So do I, Rachmed Baya Bam, chosen by the Almighty to be the head of the Inner Light Movement. I am the man who harnesses the strength of the sun, the peace force of the universe, the creator of all that is good and strong. That is what I do, sirrr," he told Pruiss. He hissed his s's as he spoke.

"Rachmed has come to help," Theodosia said.

"Yeah," Pruiss said in disgust. "To help himself."

"Wesley, give him a chance," Theodosia said. "Can it hurt?"

Baya Bam paid no attention to her. He slowly lifted the covers on the bottom of Pruiss's bed, exposing the publisher's pale, thin legs to the sunlight.

He stood alongside the foot of the bed and turned his face to the sun. He raised his hands above his head and began to chant. There were occasional words in English but most of the words Remo could not understand.

"What's he saying, Chiun?" asked Remo.

"He is saying nonsense," Chiun said.

Baya Bam switched to English.

"Oh, almighty power of the golden orb, bring the strengthness and goodness of your peace force into these legs. Bring life where there is no life. Bring strength where there is only weakness."

Pruiss turned his face away from Baya Bam. The look on his face would have been appropriate if he had seen the man eating spiders.

Baya Bam laid hands on Pruiss's legs. He kneaded the muscles, then reached his hands above his head again toward the sun, as if refilling their supply of strength, and then reached down quickly, gripping Pruiss's calf muscles and squeezing hard.

Pruiss winced.

"Ouch," he said.

Theodosia squealed and threw her arms around his shoulders and kissed his face.

"Wesley, you felt it. You felt it," she said excitedly.

"Huh," said Pruiss.

"Don't you see?" she said. "You felt his pressure on your legs. They're not dead anymore."

Pruiss looked stupid for a moment, then smiled and turned toward Rachmed Baya Bam. But the small Indian had turned his back to Pruiss and was again looking at the sun, now well above the string of trees bordering the first fairway of the golf course.

"Oh, holy globe," Baya Bam said. "We thank you in the glory of your power and in showing us the way of the inner light. And we thank you for opening the eyes of this unbeliever to show him that all things wait for him who leads the good life and who glorifies your power and virtue. All hail, oh, golden one."

He turned back and told Theodosia. "That is enough for now. We can do no more today."

"I felt it," Pruiss said. "I felt it. He squeezed my legs and I felt it." He looked around to the bodyguards to share his good news with them, but, professionally, they had their backs turned to him. He saw Remo and Chiun and greeted them with a smile.

"I felt it," he said.

"Yes, Wesley," Theodosia said. "We know."

She called to the three bodyguards. "All right, let's get Mr. Pruiss inside before he catches a chill." She pulled the bed's covers down over his legs. The three guards came and began rolling the bed away.

She followed them but stopped to say to Remo, "I have to give Wesley the pain pills for his legs."

Rachmed Baya Bam still stood facing the sun in the center of the putting green. Remo decided that if you put knickers and a turban on a gorilla, there would still be no trouble finding some people to call it a holy man.

"Do you want to talk to him, Chiun?" asked Remo.

"No," said Chiun.

They went into the big building. They heard Rachmed Baya Bam following them, almost running to keep up.

They all walked past the three bodyguards, who stood in the hallway outside Pruiss's room, and went inside. The publisher's face broke into a smile when he saw the Indian. He nodded coolly toward Remo and Chiun. "I guess you two can stay too," he said.

Baya Bam stood at the side of Pruiss's bed.

"Guru," Pruiss said. "I want to thank you. You've given me my first taste of hope."

"Sirrr," Baya Bam said. "It has nothing to do with me. I am merely the vessel through which the sun's power is poured."

"A fraud," Chiun told Remo. "Next he'll be saying that he's the sun source."

"The sun is the source and I am merely the conduit through which it flows," the Indian said.

"See," said Remo. "At least he's more modest than you."

"He should be," Chiun said.

"Anything I can have, guru, you can have," Pruiss said.

Baya Bam smiled, a smile Remo recognized as that of a man who had wired aces in a game of stud poker.

"The sun will make you whole," Baya Bam said, "because the sun can do all things. So should you not share that goodness with all people?"

Pruiss looked dumb for a moment, then asked, "Solar energy?"

"Yesss," said the Indian. "The sun can cure you and it will do that to make you ready for your mission in life. To bring the sun and its power to all the people of the world for their betterment."

"That's all you want?" Pruiss asked.

"Yes," Baya Bam said. "That is all." He paused. "That is a very handsome wristwatch you wear, sirrrr."

Pruiss stripped it from his wrist and it vanished from his fingertips into the folds of Baya Barn's pantaloons before the publisher could change his mind. Theodosia looked pained.

"You really think there's hope?" said Pruiss.

"There is more than hope. A cure is a certainty," the Indian said.

"Touch my legs again?"

The Indian shook his head. "Not today. Enough for today. Even the sun needs time to grow the tree."

"That's a good one, Chiun," said Remo. "Why don't you write it down so you can use it sometime?"

Chiun looked at Remo coldly. Pruiss was nodding at Baya Bam.

"I'll do it," he said. "Theo, the solar project's back on. And if I get cured..."

"When," corrected Baya Bam.

"When I'm cured, I'm offering my life up to the sun. Maybe make movies about it. Work it into the pictures. Sunny Sexcapades. No. I'll think about it. Maybe even give up the porn. Change the Gross-Outs into Sun-Spots, Serve health food. Guava jelly and some kind of crackers. No more frozen mayonaisse. Make 'em family places. Bring the kids and all." His face looked dreamy as his voice slowly trailed off and Wesley Pruiss fell asleep on his pillow.

"Guru," said Theodosia, "you are welcome to stay here for as long as you wish."

"Thank you, little lady," said Baya Bam.

"He is a fraud," Chiun told Remo.