Chinese Puzzle

CHAPTER FIVE

The casino was like a large living room with anxious muffled sounds and subdued lighting. Remo arrived at 9 p.m. He had checked his watch 45 minutes earlier and was checking to see how close he could come to approximating minutes. Forty-five minutes was perfect because it came to exactly three short times, the units of tune upon which Remo had built his judgment.

He looked at the second hand of his watch when he entered the casino. He was 15 seconds off. Which was good. Not up to Chiun, but still good.

Remo wore a dark double-breasted suit with a light blue shirt and dark blue tie. His shirt cuffs were double buttoned. He never wore cufflinks since extraneous metal hanging from his wrist by threads could never be controlled.

"Where are the smallest bets allowed?" Remo asked a tuxedoed Puerto Rican whose aplomb showed he worked there.

"Roulette," said the man, pointing to two tables along a wall, surrounded by a gaggle of people identical to the other gaggles of people surrounding other tables. Remo moved easily through the crowd, spotting a pickpocket at work, and casually grading his technique. His moves were too jerky; he was barely adequate.

His ears picked up an argument over the size of bets and he was fairly certain by its nature that Dr. Smith was in it.

"Minimum bet is one dollar sir," repeated the croupier.

"Now I purchased these 25 cent chips and you sold them to me, thus making a mutual contract. Your sale of ' a 25 cent chip commits you to allowing 25 cent bets."

"At times we do. But now we do not, sir. The minimum bet is one dollar."

"Outrageous. Let me speak to the manager."

There was a small whispered conference of the two casino men at the table.

Finally, one said, "If you wish, sir, you may cash in your chips now. Or, if you still insist, you may bet 25 cent chips."

"All right," said the bitter faced man. "Go ahead."

"Are you going to make your wager now?"

"No," said the man, "I want to see first how the table is running."

"Yes sir," said the croupier, called all bets and spun the wheel.

"Good evening, sir," said Remo, leaning over Dr. Smith and brushing his jacket ever so gently. "Losing?"

"No, I'm seventy five cents ahead. Wouldn't you know that as soon as someone starts to score on them, they try to change the rules?"

"How long have you been here?"

"An hour."

"Oh." Remo pretended to take from his pocket the wad of bills he had just extracted from Dr. Smith's pocket. He glanced through it. There was more than two thousand dollars. Remo bought mounds and mounds of $25 chips. Two thousand dollars worth. He blanketed the table with them.

"What are you doing?" demanded Dr. Smith.

"Betting," Remo said.

The ball bounced and spun and clinked to a hard stop. The croupiers almost instantly began collecting chips and paying off bets. Remo almost broke even.

And again he spread out his money in bets. He did this five more tunes as he saw the controlled anger well in Dr. Smith. Since Remo was obviously a lunatic, the croupiers did not enforce the house limit of $25 a number on him. So on the sixth roll, Remo had $100 on number 23 when it came out, and he collected $3,500 on the bet.

He cashed in his chips and left with Dr. Smith behind him. They entered the hotel's night club where the noise would be loud and where, if they sat up front and faced the noise, they could talk without being overhead. Talking into noise provided an excellent sound seal.

When they were seated, to all eyes apparently watching the bouncing breasts bathed in neon and incredible metallic costumes, Dr. Smith said:

"You gave that man a $100 tip. A one hundred dollar tip. Whose money did you think you were betting?"

"Oh," Remo said, "I damn near forgot." He took the roll of bills from his pocket, and counted off $2,000. "It was your money," he said. "Here."

Smith patted his pocket, felt it empty, and took the money without further comment. He changed the subject.

"You're probably wondering why I am meeting you directly, without setting breaks in the chain."

Remo had been wondering just that. His original go was to be an advertisement in the morning paper, whereupon he would catch a flight to Kennedy Airport -the first after 6 o'clock in the morning. He would then go to the men's room nearest the Pan Am counter, wait till it was empty and then say something to himself about flowers and sunshine.

A wallet would be handed out from one of the toilet stalls. He would check the wallet to make sure the seal on it was still intact. If it wasn't, he would kill the man in the stall. But if the seal was not broken, he would exchange his current wallet, and leave without ever letting the man see his face. Then he would open the new wallet and not only get his new identity, but also the meeting place with Smith.

This was the first time Smith had ever contacted him directly.

"Yes, I was wondering."

"Well, we don't have time to discuss it. You will meet a Chinese woman at Dorval Airport in Montreal. Your cover will be that you are her bodyguard, assigned by the United States Secret Service. You will stay with her as she looks for a General Liu. You will help her find him, if you can. There are only six days left to do it. When Genera! Liu is found, you will stay with him and protect his life also, until both of them return safely to China."

"And?"

"And what?"

"What is my assignment?"

"That is your assignment."

"But I'm not trained as a bodyguard. That's not my function."

"I know."

"But you were the one who stressed that I should only fulfill my function. If I wanted to do something else for the government, you suggested that I volunteer to help collect garbage. That's what you said."

"I know."

"Doctor Smith, this whole thing is stupid. Incompetent."

"In a way, yes."

"In what way, no?"

"In the small distance we are from having the beginning of peace. A lasting peace for mankind."

"That's no reason to switch my function."

"That's not your decision."

"It's one goddam beaut of a way to get me killed."

Smith ignored him. "And one more thing."

"What else?"

The trumpet blare ceased as a new act with soft music floated onto the stage in another aspect of undress. The two men at the table stared forward, silent, until the blaring resumed.

"You will take Chiun with you. That is why I am meeting you here. He is to function as your interpreter, since he speaks both the Cantonese and Mandarin dialects."

"Sorry, Dr. Smith, that busts it. No way. I can't take Chiun. Not on anything to do with the Chinese. He hates the Chinese almost as much as he hates the Japanese."

"He's still a professional. He's been a professional since childhood."

"He's also been a Korean from the village of Sinanju since childhood. I've never seen him hate before, not until this business of the Chinese Premier coming to the U.S. But I'm seeing it now, and I know he also taught me that competence decreases with anger." In Remo's vocabulary, incompetence was the vilest word. When your life depends on the correct move, the greatest sin is "incompetence."

"Look," Smith said, "Asians are always fighting among themselves."

"As opposed to who?"

"All right. But his family has taken Chinese contracts for ages."

"And he hates them."

"And he would still take their money."

"You're going to get me killed. You haven't succeeded yet. But you'll make it."

"Are you taking the assignment?"

Remo was silent for a moment as more young, well-formed breasts set over well-formed butts, topped by well formed faces paraded out in some symmetrical dance step to the brassy blaring of the trumpets.

"Well?" said Smith.

They had taken the human body, the beautiful human body, and packaged it in tinsel and lights and noise and made the parading of it obscene. They had aimed at the exact bottom of human taste, and were right on target. Was this garbage what he was supposed to give his life for?

Or maybe it was freedom of speech? Was he supposed to stand up and salute for that? He didn't particularly want to listen to most of the things said anyway. Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman, the Rev. Mclntyre?

What was so valuable about freedom of speech? It just was not worth his life to let them mouth off. And the constitution? That was just a bunch of rigamarole that he had never quite trusted.

He was-and this was Remo's secret-willing to live for CURE but not to die for it. Dying was stupid. That's why they gave people uniforms to do it in and played music. You never had to march people into a bedroom or to a fine dinner.

That was why the Irish had such great fighting songs and great singers. Like, what was his name, the singer with the too loud amplifiers in that club on third Avenue. Brian Anthony. He could make you want to march with his songs. Which is why, as any intelligence man knew, the IRA couldn't compare to the Mau Mau or any other terrorist group, let alone the Viet Cong. The Irish saw the nobility in dying. So they died.

Brian Anthony and his big happy voice and here Remo was listening to this blare when his heart could be soaring with the boys in green. That was what dying was good for. Singing about, and nothing else.

"Well?" said Smith again.

"Chiun's out," said Remo.

"But you need an interpreter."

"Get another."

"He's already been cleared. The Chinese intelligence people have his description and yours as Secret Service men."

"Great. You really take precautions, don't you?"

"Well? Will you take this assignment?"

"Aren't you going to tell me that I can refuse and no one will think any the worse of me?"

"Don't be absurd."

Remo saw a couple from Seneca Falls, New York that he had seen before with their children. This was their night of sin, their two weeks of living placed gem-like in the month setting of their lives. Or was it really the other way around, the two weeks only reinforcing their real enjoyment? What difference did it make? They could have children, they could have a home, and for Remo Williams there would never be children or a home, because too much time and money and risk had gone into producing him. And then he realized that this was the first time Smith had ever asked-asked instead of ordered- him to take an assignment. And for Smith to do that, the assignment meant something, perhaps to those people from Seneca Falls. Perhaps to their children yet to be born.

"Okay," said Remo.

"Good," said Dr. Smith. "You don't know how close this nation is to peace."

Remo smiled. It was a sad smile, a smile of oh-world-you-put-me-in-the-electric-chair.

"Did I say something funny?"

"Yes. World peace."

"You think world peace is funny?"

"I think world peace is impossible. I think you're funny. I think I'm funny. Come now. I'll take you to your flight."

"Why?" asked Smith.

"So you get back alive. You've just been set up for a kill, sweetheart."