Chinese Puzzle

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

There were seven and Remo prepared to work right, slant in left, pick up two, then come back across, pick up one, and work it from there. It wasn't necessary.

The biggest one, with the ebony face, stepped into the circle. His Afro was manicured like a well-tended hedge, and he stood with bis forearms held forward, wrists limp. One of the blacks behind him, who did not practice the Preying Mantis attack of the school of Kung Fu, laughed.

Large, strong men rarely used the Praying Mantis. It was an attack small men used to compensate. If the big man with the flaming Afro should slip past Remo's attack, Remo would be dead with one blow.

"Hey, Piggy," said the black who had laughed. "You look faggy."

Piggy moved fast for a big man, extending one leg, then moving a stroke towards Remo's head. Remo was under the stroke, driving fingers into the solar plexus, then back up to catch the sirloin roll neck with a down stroke, knee up to smash the face and set it up for a follow through with the fingers extended into the temple. The body hit the mat almost silently, the face still surprised. The left hand remained curved.

Then there were six, six stunned black faces, eyes widening. Then someone had the correct idea to attack en masse. It looked like a race riot in martial arts robes. "Get the honkey bastard. Kill Whitey. Get whitey."

Their screams echoed in the hall. Remo glanced to Chiun to see if there was approval. Mistake. A black hand came into his face and he saw darkness and stars, but as he felt himself going down, he saw the white of the mat, and saw the arms and legs and black hands with lighter palms, and felt a foot come up toward his groin.

He brought one hand up behind the kneecap, and using his fall flipped the body attached to the knee over his head. He brought a foot up into a groin and rolled. As he did so, he moved to his feet, caught an Afro and cracked down into it, smashing a skull.

A voiceless body hit the mat. A black belt launched an attack with a foot shot. Remo grabbed the ankle and kept it going behind his head and brought his thumb up sharply into the man's back, damaging a kidney and flinging him to the side, shrieking in pain. Now there were four, and they weren't as anxious to get whitey. One was downright brotherly as he nursed his broken knee. Three black belts surrounded Remo in a semi-circle.

"All at once. Attack. On three," said one, making sense. He was very dark, black as night and his beard was scraggly. His eyes had no whites, just black fires of hate. Perspiration beaded his forehead. By showing his hate so openly, he had blown his cool.

"Ain't like the movie, Shaft, is it, Sambo?" said Remo. And he laughed.

"Mother," said the black belt to Remo's left.

"Is that a plea? Or half a word?" Remo asked.

"One," called out the man with hate.

"Two," called out the man with hate.

"Three," called out the man with hate, and he went with a foot, the other two with straight ahead punches.

Remo was down beneath them, slipping behind the man who hated. He spun around, snatched his foot and kept spinning him to the bean box where students and instructors toughened their fingertips by ramming them into eight inches of beans. Remo rammed his hand into the box very quickly, but it did not reach the bottom.

It did not reach the bottom of the box because under his hand was the hate-filled face. It no longer hated because jammed into the box at that speed, it was no longer a face. It was a pulp. Beans had been driven into the eyes.

From above, it looked as if the black belt who had weakened to hate under the pressure of fear was drinking from the box deeply, the beans covering his head. Blood seeped up through the beans, swelling them.

Remo did a waltz skip to a pile of tiles with the other two black belts swinging about his head and toward his back. He scooped up two curved gray tiles from the pile and began to whistle, and as he dodged blows and kicks, he began clacking the curved bricks in rhythm to the melody.

He spun around one blow and brought the two bricks, one in each hand, together, with an Afro between them. Directly in the middle of the Afro was a head. The two bricks made valiant effort to meet. But they cracked. So did the head in the Afro between them.

The Afro with the open-mouthed head went to the mat. The remnants of the tiles went into the air. The last black standing threw an elbow that missed and then said, eloquently:

"Sheeit."

He stood there, his arms hanging, his forehead perspiring. "Ah don't know what you got, man, but Ah can't take it."

"Yeah," said Remo. "Sorry."

"Up yours, honkey," said the man, breathing heavily.

"That's the business, sweetheart," said Remo and as the man made one last desperate lunge, Remo shattered his throat with a back slash.

He untied the black belts as the corpse staggered by and walked over to the man with the broken knee who was trying to crawl to the door. He dangled the belt in front of his face. " "Want to win another one fast?"

"No man, I don't want nuthin'."

"Don't you want to wipe out whitey?"

"No, man," cried the crawling black belt.

"Ah, c'mon. Don't tell me you're one of those who save his militancy for deserted subways and classrooms?"

"Man, Ah don't want no trouble. Ah ain't done nuth-in'. You brutalizing."

"You mean when you mug someone, that's revolution. But when you get mugged, that's brutality."

"No, man." The black covered his head awaiting some sort of blow. Remo shrugged.

"Give him the black belt of the dojo of Kyoto," sang out Chiun. Remo saw anger flood the face of Kyoto, but it was quickly controlled.

"Unless, of course," Chiun said sweetly to Kyoto, "you of years of experience would care to teach the martial arts to my humble student of just a few moments?"

"That is not a humble student," said Kyoto. "And you did not teach him art, but the methods of Sinanju."

"All the house of Sinanju had to work with was a white man. But in our small way, we attempt to do the best we can with whatever is given us." The black belt with the broken knee was now scurrying into a dressing room out a side door, which slammed shut behind him. Kyoto's eyes followed the sound and Chiun said, "That man has the instincts of a champion. I will tell your honorable father how successful you are in teaching track and field. He will be happy that you have deserted dangerous sports."

Remo folded the black belt in his hands carefully, walked over and flipped it to Kyoto. "Maybe you can sell it to somebody else."

The dojo looked as if it had just surfaced from a whirlpool that had struck in the middle of a class. Chiun looked happy, but he said: "Pitiful. Your left hand still fails to extend properly."

Mei Soong was ashen-faced.

"I thought… I thought… Americans were soft."

"They are," snickered Chiun.

"Thanks for bringing me here," Remo said. "Any other places you wish to visit?"

Mei Soong paused. "Yes," she finally said. "I'm hungry."