Acid Rock

CHAPTER TWENTY

The sun was high and the air was still and the heat lay over the twenty-five-acre concert site like an airproof iron blanket.

Remo and Chiun moved slowly through the grounds, looking for the bandstand.

«Where's the bandstand, pal?» Remo asked a young bearded man, who sat cross-legged on the ground, rocking back and forth.

«What bandstand, man?»

«The place where they're going to play.»

«Yeahhhh, they going to play and I going to listen.»

«Right. But where?»

«I going to listen right here. In my ears. My pretty pearl-drop ears that hear all the good and reject all the evil. In with the good and out with the bad.» He giggled. «That's my secret formula for artificial respiration.»

«And what's your secret formula for lunacy?» Remo asked in disgust. He turned away and continued walking with Chiun.

«Very enlightening,» Chiun said. «They come to see and hear but they do not know who or where. It is very interesting, how clever you Americans are. And what is this smoke that covers these grounds?»

«It is just burning grass,» Remo said maliciously.

«It does not smell like burning grass,» Chiun said. «Yet if it is, why is no one afraid? Do they not fear fires?»

«If you burn enough grass, you're not afraid of anything,» Remo said.

«That answer makes no sense,» Chiun said.

Remo looked pleased. «It's vague only to you.»

A quarter of a million people had already jammed into the site and more were marching in every moment, making movement almost impossible. All pretense of ticket taking had stopped and now field and concert area was just open country. The promoters of the concert had made their money on advance sales, and with that in the bank, they did not care how many freebees ripped them off for admissions.

The old farm area was now a sea of dots, each dot a cluster of three or four or five people, some sitting on the ground, some lying on air mattresses, others in pitched tents. Normally, Remo would have looked to see which way the tents were facing, but these small groups were formless, pointed in no direction, having come not to see or hear but to be seen and to be heard. Each protected his own little piece of turf, and Remo and Chiun drew dirty looks, a few curses and much mild abuse as they moved through the little pockets of territoriality, looking for the stage.

Up ahead, Remo heard a motorcycle rev up, start up with a cough, then roar the engine into warmth.

«We're going right,» he told Chiun.

«How do you know that?»

«Find the motorcycles and you find the stage,» Remo said.

«It is part of the music?» Chiun asked.

«No, but the sounds are almost indistinguishable,» Remo said. Resolutely he moved ahead, Chiun behind him, his head swiveling around, looking in wonder at the flow of humanity there.

«Look, Remo,» he said. «That one is wearing the costume of your Uncle Samuel.»

«Swell,» said Remo, without looking.

«And there is Smokey the Bear.»

«Great.»

«Why is that one wearing a General Custer uniform? And there is a gorilla suit.»

«Terrific.»

«Why do you not pay attention? As the youth goes, so goes your country. Do you not want to see your people's next generation of rulers? Look! There is a boy dressed as Mickey Mouse and a girl dressed as Donald Duck.»

«Good. What are they doing?» Remo asked, still moving forward.

«I would rather not say,» Chiun replied. He speeded up his steps to come alongside Remo. «If this is what the next generation of rulers will look like in your country, I think you and I should begin looking for a new emperor,» Chiun said.

«I agree,» said Remo. «Just as soon as we get Vickie Stoner out of here in one piece.»

«And settle with Mr. Nilsson,» Chiun said.

«You think he'll be here?»

«I know he will be here.»

«Well, keep your eyes open for him,» Remo said smartly.

«Keep your eyes open for him,» Chiun mocked. «No, I will keep my eyes closed.»

The two had gotten past the last clustered clump of bodies now, and were standing alone on a fifteen-foot grassy strip that ran in a huge semicircle at one end of the property. At one side of the grassy band were the customers of the rock festival; fifteen feet away at the other side, a long string of motorcycle bums, wearing their leather jackets, standing almost elbow-to-elbow in front of their machines, trying to look tough. Behind them rose the stage, elevated 15 feet in the air. Sound towers rose on both sides and in the back, to pump the sound out over the entire area.

Remo and Chiun moved forward.

«Hey, you. You're in no man's land. Beat it.»

The speaker was a black-suited motorcycle rider who stood facing them. His voice brought three or four others to his side. They were wearing identical costumes. On their peaked gestapo hats, Remo could read the legend: «Dirty Devils.»

«It's all right,» Remo said. «We're friends of the owner.»

«That don't mean nothing to me,» the loudmouth said.

«Well, that means it must mean something,» Remo said. «Don't you remember from school: negative double causes trouble? Sister Carmelita taught me that. Didn't you learn that in school? That is, if you went to school. Did they have school at the zoo?»

«All right, buddy. You and the old gent there, move on out.»

«I'll give you a nickel if you let us pass,» Remo said. «Just think. A nickel of your own. You can get your own bag of peanuts, and maybe your friends'll shell them for you.»

Chiun put a hand on Remo's shoulder. «We may wait. There is no one here yet and there will be plenty of time.»

Remo looked at Chiun, thoughtfully, then nodded. He turned back toward the four leatherclad cyclists. «Got you, fellows. See you later.»

He turned and stepped back with Chiun out of the no-man's-land ring of grass, into the tightly packed cluster of young people.

A little blonde girl jumped to her feet and embraced Chiun. «It's Bodhi-Dharma come to life,» she said.

«No. I am only Chiun,» Chiun said.

«You didn't come to take me to the Great Emptiness?» The girl seemed hurt.

«One can take no one to the Great Emptiness. Because to find it is to fill it and then it is emptiness no more.»

«Well, if that's so, what sense does Zen make?» the girl asked. Around her feet sat three other girls, all mid-teens, their eyes all slightly vague, Remo noted. The ground around them was littered with what the unsophisticated eye might have perceived as tobacco ashes and cigarette butts.

«Another master was once asked that question,» Chiun said. «He beat the questioner with a stick and then said, 'Now I have explained Zen.' It is, child, no more difficult than that.»

«Bitchen, man, bitchen. Sit down with us and tell us some more. You too, man,» she said to Remo.

Chiun looked at Remo, who shrugged. One place was as good as another and this one was close to the bandstand, which would be helpful when they had to make their move later. Chiun sank slowly into a lotus position on the ground. Remo dropped down next to him, drawing his knees up to his chin, watching the crowd, his concentration drawn away from Chiun and the four girls.

«You study Zen?» Chiun asked the blonde.

«We try. We all do, but we can't understand it,» she protested.

«That is its point,» Chiun said. «The harder one tries, the less one understands. It is when you stop trying to understand it that it all becomes clear.»

Remo felt himself drawn back to the conversation by that lunacy. «That doesn't make any sense, Chiun,» he said.

«Nothing makes sense to you except your stomach. Why do you not leave me and these children of peace and find yourself a hamburger stand where you may poison yourself?»

Remo sniffed, his feelings hurt, lifted his chin and turned his head away again without looking at the field.

Without looking at his watch, he knew it was five minutes to one. The concert was due to start soon.

As Remo watched the nearby crowd, Chiun talked, his voice hushed and muffled against the steady rumbling of voices from the quarter-million people gathered in the vast meadow. Occasionally, the buzzing, like a far-off train, would be broken by a shout … a scream … sometimes voices raised in song, singing almost in unison. Remo recognized the characteristic smell and noted for the first time that marijuana smoke drew mosquitoes. They were all over and one of the most persistent sounds throughout the field was hand slapping arm. Only Chiun seemed untroubled, even though the girls were smoking pot as he lectured. Remo felt more people around him. Their intimate group was growing larger. More and more persons had come to sit around the central cluster and listen to Chiun.

«Are you a priest?» one girl asked.

«No. Just a wise man.» Remo snickered, and Chiun glared.

«What do you do?» he was asked.

«I raise money to feed the starving babies of my village,» Chiun said, oozing humility and love, enjoying the moment.

«Tell them how you do it,» growled Remo.

«Pay him no mind,» Chiun told the group, which had now grown to a semisilent two dozen, squatting on the ground before him. «You have heard the Zen koan of the sound of one hand clapping. Next to you, you witness an even greater riddle: a mouth that works continually without connection to a working brain.»

There were a few giggles. Everyone turned to look at Remo, who thought of answering but could not think of an appropriate retort.

Remo heard the first noises, that familiar rhythmic sound. A minute later it became audible throughout the field. Tension almost rose in waves as the sound of voices became louder. The excitement moved from a far corner of the farm property, across the field, ripping through the 250,000 people, tensing them all up, all of them talking at once. They were coming. They were coming. There it was. Their helicopter. It was Maggot. And the Lice. They were on their way. People stood and stretched their necks to try to see the chopper approaching. A few seconds later it swept into view.

A quarter of a million people saw it at the same time, and they vented their pleasure in a massive roar that made the ground Remo sat on tremble. But at Chiun's feet, the two dozen young people sat unmoving, listening only to Chiun as he spoke gently of love and honor in a world filled with hate and deceit.

Remo watched the helicopter. So also, for a few seconds, did Gunner Nilsson, who stood in front of one of the guards at the far left side of the raised stage.

«I am the doctor hired by the owners,» Nilsson said, lifting his bag for emphasis. «I must be near the stage.»

«Man, I got no instructions about you,» the Dirty Devil said. One other cyclist moved, as if to come over to lend support, but the first one waved him back. Who needed help handling a sixty-year-old man?

«Well, I have my instructions right here,» said Dr. Gunner Nilsson.

The helicopter was now overhead. The guard glanced over his shoulder to watch the chopper start its descent in a large empty area between the stage and a stand of trees that marked the end of the farm property.

Nilsson opened his doctor's bag, reached his right hand in and gripped a hypodermic syringe. He waited until the guard's attention was on the chopper, and then slapped the syringe through the leather jacket into the young man's left bicep.

The needle bit flesh. Gunner Nilsson depressed the plunger. The guard turned, an angry look on his face, his hand reaching up to his arm, a curse on his mouth. His mouth opened to speak. It froze there momentarily, and then he fell, collapsing all at once.

The thump of his body on the ground drew the attention of the guard at his left.

«Quick,» Nilsson said, «I'm a doctor. This man must be taken to the medical tent.»

The guard looked at his fallen partner.

«Heat exhaustion, I think,» Nilsson said. He waved his medical bag at the other guard. «Hurry. He needs treatment.»

«All right,» the man finally said. «Harry, give me a hand here,» he said to the guard next to him.

Nilsson moved past the unconscious guard and toward the high, twice-twisting steps that led onto the left side of the empty stage.

The helicopter was on the ground, twenty feet behind the stage. Gunner Nilsson went up the steps and walked to the first landing, from which he could see over the heads of the motorcycle goons who ringed the front of the stage area. The crowd was on its feet now, standing, jumping, trying to get a peek at Maggot and his crew, but no one was willing to come forward across the no man's land separating the audience from the performance area.

Nilsson looked out into the crowd and saw it as a mass wave of humanity, impelled by idiocy and stupidity. How sad, how many people had to come together like this, just to prove to themselves that they existed.

As he looked at the wave of humanity, he saw a quiet, unmoving eddy of stillness. A group of twenty young people were sitting on the ground, many with their backs to the stage, at the center of them was an elderly Oriental in a saffron robe, his hands folded, his mouth working as he spoke. To the side of the Oriental, Nilsson could see an American, a youngish athletic-looking man who seemed to be counting the house.

Nilsson felt excitement raise gooseflesh behind his shoulder blades. His instincts told him who they were. The Oriental and the Remo who had killed Lhasa. They would be first. And then Vickie Stoner for the million and a half dollars. That was important now, because unless that contract were completed there would be no meaning to Lhasa's death.

Nilsson rested his doctor's bag on a bannister made of a rough four-by-four and opened it. Inside the bag, his hands carefully checked his revolver.

Down below, in the eddy of serenity amidst the ocean of confusion, noise, and chaos that swept the field, Chiun sat and talked. And watched and saw.

«The secret of the world is to see,» he said, «not just to look. One man looks at another and can see nothing. But another man can look and can see. He can see, for instance, that a man does not blink. It sounds like a nothing but it is a something. What if a man does not blink? He does not blink because he has been trained not to blink and it is good to know that a man has had that kind of training, because then you know what kind of man he is.»

His high-pitched voice rambled on, Remo kept watching the crowd, looking for anyone who might be Nilsson. Random words and phrases moved into his consciousness. «The man who does not blink … dangerous … one should not just look but one should see.»

Chiun was telling him something. What? He looked at Chiun, whose eyes met his. Chiun lifted his head toward the direction of the bandstand. Remo followed his eyes, and then saw the man on the steps, looking out toward Chiun. Remo had seen the man before when he had bumped into him in the Pittsburgh theater lobby.

Gunner Nilsson, here to kill Vickie Stoner. But why wasn't he turned toward the helicopter that had just set down lightly on the ground behind the stage? Vickie would come from there. She would be defenseless.

Remo moved smoothly to his feet. «I go, Little Father. Do you join me?»

«I will stay here to entertain our friend.»

«Be careful.»

«Yes, Doctor Smith,» Chiun said, a small smile on his mouth.

Remo moved sideways through the crowd which was now standing. He shortened his body, trying to melt into the mass of people. He started left, then moved right again, toward the no man's land on the other side of the stage from Nilsson. As he got closer to the fifteen-foot-wide grassy strip, Remo could see Maggot, the Dead Meat Lice, and Vickie Stoner standing on a platform under the stage. There was machinery there too. Probably some kind of elevator, Remo realized.

Remo stepped across the swatch of grass separating audience from stage. Most of the guards had their backs to the audience now, watching Maggot themselves, violating the first rule of the bodyguard trade.

The stage now blocked Nilsson from Remo's view. Remo moved behind one guard and placed his hand behind the man's neck. If anyone were watching, it looked like a friendly arm draped around a friend's friendly shoulder. The view of the audience did not include a look at Remo's fingers, which had moved into the thick neck muscles of the guard and quietly gripped a major artery carrying blood to the brain.

Three seconds and the guard went limp. Remo propped him against the tree he had been standing under and moved off toward the elevator platform under the stage.

On the steps on the far side of the stage, Gunner Nilsson took his pistol from his doctor's bag and dropped down onto the platform floor. Slats shielded him from the view of the audience, but he could see through the audience clearly. He poked the barrel of the revolver through one of the slats and zeroed the weapon in on Chiun, who sat placidly, continuing to talk, lecturing the young people around him.

Where was the white man? That Remo? Nilsson looked through the slats, left and right, but saw no sign of him. Well, no matter. He would not be far away. First the Oriental.

He aimed the point of the barrel at Chiun's forehead, just testing. But the forehead was not there. It was to the left. He moved the barrel of the gun again slightly to the left and fixed it on the forehead. But the forehead was again gone. It was below the line of his fire. He lowered the barrel. How could this be? The Oriental had not moved. Gunner was sure of that. And yet, he was never in the line of Gunner's fire.

That told him something, something out of the dim history of his family. What was it? A saying. He searched the corners of his mind but he could not find the answer. What was that saying?

Then he had no chance to think. The loudspeakers blared with a sound like God announcing the arrival of Judgment Day.

«Friends,» a voice screeched. «People. Human beings all. We give you Maggot and the Dead Meat Lice.» The last six words were delivered in a scream so amplified it could have brought a Latin American country to a halt.

Gunner held the revolver at his side and stood up. On the stage smoke was rising heavily, Gunner could see, from chemical pots hung under the stage surface. The smoke began to cover the stage, heavy clouds of red, yellow, green, and violet, all merging smoothly in the hot still summer air. Gunner could hear machinery start. The lift below the stage was rising. He continued to watch the stage.

There was another sound. A giant vacuum began to suck away the smoke. It cleared almost instantly and there, standing on the stage, were Maggot and the three Lice. Behind them was Vickie Stoner. She would be last, however, Gunner thought to himself.

The girl backed away from the four-man group and suddenly, with a screech, Maggot and the Dead Meat Lice were into their first song. «Mugga, mugga, mugga, mugga,» they wailed. The audience screamed, drowning out the amplification, making it impossible for anyone to hear the musical group the quarter of a million persons had traveled what came to millions of miles to hear.

Remo's ears pounded. He moved under the platform toward the steps on the left and hit them lightly on his way up.

Eight feet above Remo, Gunner Nilsson felt the boards shake. It was not the vibrations of the music, because he had already registered that sensation and filed it in his mind. It was a different kind of vibration; Gunner turned and looked down. Eight feet below him, at the bottom of the steps, was the American, that Remo.

All right. The American would be first.

Remo took a step up the stairs.

«Your brother blinked, you know,» he said.

«Yes, but that was my brother,» Nilsson said. He slowly raised the pistol on a line with Remo's chest

No one saw; all eyes were on Maggot and the Lice.

Remo came up another step.

«He cleared his throat too, when he was ready to make his move.»

«Many people do,» Nilsson said, «but I do not.»

«Funny,» Remo said taking another step. «I kind of thought it was a family trait. You know, one of those weaknesses that are bred in and eventually wind up killing everybody.»

«Anything that is bred in can be trained out,» Nilsson said. «I do not have my brother's bad habits.»

He smiled slightly as Remo came up another step. The American fool thought he was being so clever advancing slowly on Gunner Nilsson. Did he think for a moment he would have advanced if Gunner Nilsson had not chosen to let him?

There was a thing he wanted to know. He had to raise his voice to be heard over the roar of music.

«How did you kill him?» he called. «By his own gun?»

«Actually, no,» Remo said. «I didn't kill him at all. Chiun did.»

«The old Oriental?» That confirmed what the black had said, but Gunner still could not fully believe it.

«Yes,» Remo said. «I think he took him out with a toe thrust to the throat, but I can't really be sure because I wasn't there.» Another step.

«That is a lie. Lhasa was too big for the old man to handle alone.»

«Wrong, Nilsson,» Remo said. «That's the trouble with you squareheads. You never learn anything. I should think you'd have learned your lesson by now. It's not the first time you've faced the old man.»

Nilsson searched his brain. «Chiun?» The name meant nothing. «Never have we met him.»

«But his ancestors,» Remo said, taking another step. «At Islamabad. The Master of Sinanju.»

Nilsson's face paled. «I have heard of such a one. It is now only a legend.»

«He lives and breathes,» Remo said. Another step.

«Not for long,» said Nilsson, but his face turned white as he remembered the saying he had been searching his brain for. It had been handed down through generations of Nilssons.

«Where walks the Master from the East, let all other men give way.»

Remo saw the blood drain from Nilsson's face. «You sure you don't blink or clear your throat? Or what's your weakness? From the looks of it, perhaps you just have a coronary.»

Another step. He was too close now. Nilsson closed his finger about the trigger. It went off with a crash, loud, piercing, but still unheard against the rumble of the music. The white man dropped. He was dead. No, he was not. He was moving. He hit the steps, rolled forward over his shoulders and with his feet, plucked the pistol from Nilsson's hand and dropped it over the railing.

And then the white man was on his feet, smiling, moving again toward Nilsson.

«Sorry,» he said. «That's the biz, sweetheart.»

Nilsson roared, deep down in his throat, a roar of generations of Viking raiders.

Perhaps, he thought. Perhaps the curse of Sinanju was on the Nilsson family. But he could still give meaning to Lhasa's death by fulfilling the family contract. He turned from Remo and bolted up the stairs. The girl. He would rip her throat out.

He took the steps three at a time.

Remo turned on the landing and started up after him, but then stopped.

So did Nilsson. At the top of the stairs stood the ancient Oriental, serene and placid in his yellow robe, a smile on his face.

Remo could not hear his words, but it looked as if Chiun had said, «Welcome, Mr. Nilsson. Welcome to your famous house.»

Nilsson thought to overpower him. Remo watched and smirked as he saw Nilsson's shoulders tense up for the charge he would make. Trying to charge Chiun was like trying to bite an alligator in the mouth. Nilsson roared again, lowered a shoulder and rammed forward against Chiun. The old man gave way, and Nilsson was past him. Remo shook his head in shock for a moment, then darted up the stairs after Nilsson.

Vickie stood behind Maggot and the band, watching them, tapping her foot. She turned and saw Nilsson racing toward her. Her eyes opened in fright as she registered the look on his face. She backed away.

Remo was at the top of the stairs now, but he saw only a flash of saffron robe moving across the stage. Nilsson's arms were extended in front of him, reaching for the girl.

The Viking roar rose again in his throat. It died in a curdled squeak as an iron-hard hand came from behind him. Nilsson's last thoughts were those of a physician, not an assassin. He recognized the crunch of temple bones breaking, the piercing pain as shards of bone sliced like knives into his brain, and then the slow feeling of lazy warmth as death overtook his body.

He turned toward Chiun, searching those hazel eyes for meaning, but there was only respect. He turned again and staggered out onto the stage in front of Maggot and the Dead Meat Lice, who kept playing despite the intrusion. In his death throes, Nilsson weaved toward the edge of the stage, collapsed and rolled off, dropping the fifteen feet to the ground, landing on the shoulders of one of the guards who began to punch Nilsson's dead body, calling his friends to help him teach the troublemaker a lesson.

Up on the stage, Maggot shouted:

«Heavy, man. Dead Meat Lice rule over all.»

Down below, the guards piled on Nilsson's helpless corpse. The cordon of protection between the bandstand and the audience disappeared.

It was a girl who made the first charge. One lone girl moving quickly across the grass toward the stage. Several others watched. When she was not stopped, a few more came, a trickle at first, then a wave, then a tsunami. Maggot stopped in the middle of a note. He saw the crowd rushing toward the platform and him. Hundreds of people. With unwashed hands. Greasy fingers. Dirty fingernails. Tobacco-stained knuckles. Trying to touch him. He hit the switch under his foot on the stage and smoke immediately began to pour up again from the machine underneath.

The music slowed and stopped. The sudden silence was like an invitation to charge. Baying like a pack of hounds, the entire audience seemed to surge forward toward the bandstand.

«Vickie, quick,» Maggot yelled, he hit a second switch and under cover of the smoke, the lift in the center of the stage began to descend. The

Lice jumped onto the platform with Maggot. Remo put an arm around Vickie Stoner and helped her down onto the descending platform. Next to him, Remo saw Chiun.

A moment later, they were all in the helicopter and it was lifting away, just out of reach of hundreds of fans, who had engulfed the craft but had the sense to stay away from its whirling blades.

As if on cue, the helicopter rose, and heavy drops of rain began to fall, the fat heavy drops that typify mountain summer showers.

«You all right, Vickie?» Maggot was asking.

«Yes, Calvin,» she said. Remo was surprised. Her voice was clear, strong, unmuffled, undrugged.

«What's with you?» Remo said. «Run out of pills?»

«No, straight man. I'm off that. I got a new high.»

«What's that?»

«Calvin,» she said, touching Maggot's arm. «We're getting married.»

«Congratulations,» Remo said. «Name the first one after me.»

«We will, even though straight shit is a funny name for a boy baby.»

Remo grinned. He looked out at the Darlington farm below. It had been raining only a few seconds but already the field was puddling and muddy in the cloudburst. People scurried back and forth, fights broke out all over the site. It looked like an aerial view of a Harlem riot. Anyone studying entropy, the principle of maximum confusion, would have recognized the field as a textbook illustration.

Remo felt Chiun's face next to his, peering out the chopper window.

«Tell me, Remo,» Chiun said. «Is this a happening?»

«A what?»

«A happening.»

«I guess it is,» Remo said.

«Good,» Chiun said. «I have always wanted to be at a happening.»

The helicopter continued to circle the farm for a few minutes and then one of the Lice said to the pilot, «Better take it out of here, man, some of them cats may be packing heat.»

The pilot tipped the nose forward and the craft swooshed off, back toward the town and the motel.

«I can't wait to get back,» Vickie said.

«Why?» Remo said. «Anything special?»

«No. Just to call my daddy. Tell him I'm all right.»

«Your father? You call him?»

«Every day. Just so he knows where I am and that I'm safe.»

«This is the father you're going to testify against?»

«Yeah, but that's business. This other is personal, my calling him. I have to. He's just so depressed. Every time he hears my voice, he says, 'Oh, it's you,' like it's the end of the world.»

«I understand,» Remo said and for the first time, he did. He understood who had put out the contract on her life, and why there was so much money backing it up, and now he understood why the assassins always seemed to know exactly where Vickie Stoner was.

He understood a lot of things now.

He looked across the cabin at Chiun, who looked less queasy than he usually did when he was on a helicopter.

«You understand now, do you not?» Chiun asked.

«I do.»

«In time, even a rock learns to be worn away by the water.»

«Have you ever heard the sound of one hand clapping?» Remo asked.