Chinese Puzzle

CHAPTER TWELVE

"I must talk to you, Chiun," said Remo. He shut the door behind him, leaving Mei Soong still sprawled, exhausted and drained, across her bed.

Chiun sat down on the gray carpeted floor, his legs crossed before him in the lotus position. His face was passive.

Remo sat down before him. He could, if he wished, sit for hours now, having worked for years on his concentration and body control He was taller than Chiun, but as they sat, their eyes were level.

"Chiun," said Remo. "You're going to have to return to Folcroft. I'm sorry, but you're just too much trouble."

And then Remo caught something, which he was sure he did not catch. He could not quite define it. Not in Chiun. In anyone else, he would have decided a preparation for attack or a decision to attack. But that was impossible in Chiun. For one, Remo knew Chiun had eliminated any telegraphing motions, at least as much as he was able, right down to the first flash of preparation which could sometimes be seen in the eyes but more often in the shift of the spinal column. Most people adept at the trade learned to give nothing from their eyes, but the shift in the spinal column was like hanging out a sign.

And Remo, if he did not know that Chiun did not give out signs, and if he did not know that Chiun had deep affection for him, would have sworn at that moment, in the hotel room in Boston, with the doors shut and the blinds drawn, that Chiun had just decided to kill him.

"Something troubles you," said Chiun.

"The truth is, Chiun, that you've become impossible.

You're going to blow this mission with your nonsense about the Chinese. I've never before seen you less than perfect, and now you're acting like a child."

"Smith has ordered you to send me back?"

"Now don't get upset. This is just a professional decision."

"What I am asking is did Smith order my return?"

"And if I told you he did, would it make things easier for you?"

"I must know."

"No. Smith did not order it. I want it."

Chiun raised his right hand delicately, signalling that he wished to make a point and that Remo should listen with care.

"I will explain to you, my son, why I do things you do not understand. To understand actions, one must understand the person. I must tell you of me and my people. And you will know why I do what I do, and why I hate the Chinese.

"Many people would think of me as an evil man, a professional killer of people, a man who teaches other people to kill. So be it. But I am not an evil man. I am a good man. I do what I am supposed to do. It is our way of life in Sinanju, a way we needed for survival.

"You come from a rich country. Even the poorest countries of the west are rich compared to my home. I have told you some small things about my village of Sinanju. It is poor as you do not understand poor. The land can support only one-third of the families who live there. That is in the good years.

"Before we discovered a way to survive, we would destroy half our girl babies at birth. We would drop them sadly into the bay, and say we were sending them home, to be reborn during better times. During famines, we would send the male children home the same way, waiting for another time more propitious to birth. I do not believe that by dropping them in the bay we send them home. And I do not believe that most of our people believe it.

But it is an easier thing for a mother to say than that she gave her child to the crabs and sharks. It is a lie to make grief more endurable.

"Imagine China as the body and Korea as the arm. In the armpit is Sinanju, and to that village the lords of China and the lords of Korea would exile people. Royal princes who had betrayed their fathers, wise men, magicians who had done evil. One day, I believe in your year of 400 and our day of the nightingales, a man came to our poor village.

"He was as no man we had ever seen. He looked very different. He was from the island beyond the peninsula. From Japan. He was before ninjutsu, before karate, before all. He was, on his own island, accursed, having taken his mother as a woman. But he was innocent. He did not know she was his mother. But they punished him nevertheless, taking out his eyes with bamboo sticks."

Chiun's voice began to quiver as he imitated pomposity: " 'We cast you to the scum of this scum land,' the Japanese captain told the poor blind man. 'Death is too good for you.' And the blind man answered."

Chiun's voice now exuded integrity. His eyes lifted to the ceiling.

" 'Hark,' the man said. 'You who have eyes, do not see. You, who have hearts, know not mercy. You, who have ears, do not hear the waves lap upon your boat. You, who have hands, do not comfort.

" 'Woe be to you, when your hardheartedness returns and no doves mark its trail in peace. Because I see now a new people of Sinanju. I see a people who will settle your petty disputes. I see men of men. I see people of goodness, bringing their wrath to your foolish squabbles. From this day forth, when you approach Sinanju, bring money for the wars you cannot fight. That is the tax I place upon you and upon all those not from this village. To pay for the services you cannot do yourself, because you know not piety.' "

Chiun obviously was very happy with the story.

"Now, my son," he said to Remo. "Tell me what you think of this tale. With truth."

Remo paused.

"The truth," Chiun said.

"I think it's the same as the kids going home. I think the people of Sinanju became professional assassins because they had no other way to make a living. I think the story is just another way of making a shit deal more acceptable."

Chiun's face narrowed, the normal wrinkles becoming canyons, his hazel eyes burning. His lips were evil thin lines. He hissed: "What? Is that the truth? Will you not reconsider?"

"If I am to lose your affection, little father, because I tell the truth, then I will lose it. I do not want a lie between us because what we have dies with a lie. I think your story of Sinanju is a myth, made up to explain reality."

Chiun's face relaxed, and he smiled. "I think so, too. Heh, heh. But you almost lied there because you did not wish to offend me. Heh, heh. It is a beautiful story, no?"

"It is beautiful."

"Well, back to business. In the year 1421, the Emperor Chu Ti hired our master, the man the village lives on."

"One man?" Remo asked.

"That is all that is needed. If the man is good enough, that is all that is needed to support the weak and the poor and the aged of the village, all those who cannot fend for themselves. And our master brought with him into China the sword of Sinanju, seven feet long and of the finest metal. It was his task to execute the architects and the builders of the T'ai-ho Tien, the throne room, because they had installed and knew the secret passageways."

Remo interrupted. "Why would he need a sword?"

"The hand is for attack. But the sword is for execution."

Remo nodded.

"He fulfilled his duties to the letter. On the afternoon of the completion of the T'ai-ho Tien, the Emperor called all the architects and builders to the secret passageway, where he had said they would receive their reward.

"But he was not there to reward them. Only the master. Whaa, the sword moved right. Whaa, the sword moved left. Whaa, the sword moved down, and scarcely a man there saw the blade or knew what was happening. Whaa."

Chiun two-handed a large, imaginary sword. It had to be imaginary because no seven-foot sword could move that quickly with that little effort.

"Whaa. And he left the sword there with the bodies, to return for it after he was paid. But before he was paid, the Emperor invited him to dinner. But the master said, 'I can not. My people are hungry. I must return with their sustenance.' This is the truth I speak, Remo.

"And the Emperor gave the master a poisoned fruit. And the master was helpless."

"Don't you people have a defense against poison?"

"There is only one. Not eating. Know your food. That is your weakness too, my son. Although no one need try to poison you because you poison yourself daily. Pizza, hot dogs, roast beef, mashed potatoes, the skin of poultry. Pheewww. Anyway, the master awoke in a field, because of his great strength, only numbed. On foot, weak, and without his powers, he returned to Sinanju. By the time he arrived, they were again sending the newborn home."

Chiun's head dropped. He stared at the floor.

"For me to fail is to send the children home. I cannot do that, even if you were the assignment. For today, I am the master."

"That's your tough shit, Chiun, not mine." Remo's voice was cold.

"You are right. It is my tough shit."

"What about the architects and builders? Why did they deserve death?"

"That is the price one must expect to pay for working for the Chinese."

"And Sinanju paid that price also," Remo said. He was beyond anger, in the whirlpool of frustration, unable to strike out at anything that would not hurt him more. He had always known that Chiun was professional and if need be Remo himself would be sacrificed. But he did not like to hear it.

"One always pays the price. Nothing is free," Chiun said. "You are paying it now. You are exposed, known, your greatest weapon, that of surprise, gone. You have no children whose lives depend on your service, no mothers to tell themselves lies because you failed. Your skills can give you the good life. Go. Escape."

The anguish Remo had felt left for a new pain, the hurt of telling a good friend something you did not tell even yourself. He leaned forward, hoping to avoid telling Chiun.

"What's the matter, Chiun? Don't you have it to kill me?"

"Do not be silly. Of course, I would kill you. Although death would be easier for me."

"I cannot abandon this assignment," Remo said.

"Why?"

"Because," Remo said, "I have children too. And they are being sent home, by heroin, by war, by crime, by people who think it a good thing to blow up buildings and shoot policemen and stretch the laws of our country until they protect no one. The children who are harmed by this are my children. And if we have a chance, that someday, we will not have wars, and our streets will be safe, and children are not poisoned by drugs and men robbed by other men, then, that day will I escape. Then, that day, will I put down my nation's sword. And until that day, I will do my job."

"You will do your job until you are killed."

"That's the biz, sweetheart."

"That's the biz," said Chiun.

And then they smiled, Chiun first, then Remo, because they felt that first little tinge that tells you someone is zoning in on you, and it would be good now to use their bodies again.

There was a knock on the door.

"Come in," said Remo, rising from the floor. It felt good to stretch his legs. The door opened, admitting the woman whom he had pointedly not noticed noticing him in the lobby. She was dressed now as a maid.

"Hello, sir," she said. "Your air conditioning is malfunctioning. We'll have to turn it off and open the window."

"By all means," Remo said sweetly.

The woman, giving more signals than the public address system at Grand Central Station, clopped into the room and pulled up the blinds. She did not look at either man, but was stiff and programmed and even perspiring.

Chiun made a face, indicating almost shock at the incompetence of the setup. Remo squelched a laugh.

The woman opened the window, and Chiun and Remo simultaneously spotted the sniper across the street, in a room one story higher than theirs. It was as easy as if the woman had shone a flashlight into the room across the street.

Remo grabbed her hands in his.

"Gee, I don't know how to thank you for this. I mean, it was getting stuffy in here."

"That's all right," said the woman, attempting to break free. Remo applied slight pressure behind her thumbs and stared into her eyes. She had been avoiding his, but could avoid them no longer.

"That's all right," she repeated. "I was glad to help." Her left foot began to tap nervously.

"I'd like to phone the desk and thank them for your help," Remo said.

"Oh, no. Don't do that. It's part of the service." The woman was so locked in her tension now that she had turned off her feelings, lest they explode. Remo let her go. She would not look back when she left the room, but would run where she must run.

Remo wanted them both, together. He did not want any corpses in his own room, or cluttering his hallway. But if he got them in their room, neat, done, then perhaps a small bite to eat. He had not eaten since the previous day.

She stumbled through the door, and it shut with a crack behind her and she was gone. Remo waited a moment, then said to Chiun:

"You know, I could go for seafood tonight."

"The sniper has been to Sinanju," said Chiun.

"Yeah, I thought so. You know, I felt him zoning in through the blinds." Remo held the doorknob.

"Incredibly effective," Chiun said, "except of course when it is incredibly ineffective. When the victim, not the shooter, is in control of the relationship. It was originally done with arrows, you know."

"You haven't taught me the firing yet."

"If you're alive in a few weeks, I will. I will keep him occupied," Chiun said, swaying slowly, as though dodging and teasing the end of a long, slow spear.

"Thanks," said Remo, opening the door.

"Wait," said Chiun.

"Yes?" said Remo.

"We had seafood yesterday."

"You can have vegetables. I'll have lobster."

"I'd like duck. Duck would be nice if cooked properly."

"I hate duck," Remo said.

"Learn to like it."

"See you later," said Remo.

"Think about duck," said Chiun.