Warren Murphy - Bay City Blast

"So Shang-tu went back to Siam again," Remo said.

Chiun looked up sharply. "That is correct. Did I ever tell you this story before?"

"No."

"Then please do not interrupt. So the Master Shang-tu went back to Siam again. This time, with the blood of many children on his head, he did not listen to the king's honeyed words, but instead he slew the king and carried back the treasure himself. And that is an important lesson for all assassins and we are indebted to Shang-tu for teaching it to us. Hail Shang-tu."

"Don't trust anybody, even kings," Remo suggested.

Chiun shook his head. "Don't you ever listen?"

"I listened. I listened. It sounded like don't trust anybody."

"Really, Remo, you're hopeless." He raised his hands to show how hopeless Remo was. He moved a few inches to the left so that his body was directly in front of the box of ping pong balls. When he lowered his hands, he slid them behind him so that either hand could reach the box.

"Trust anyone you want, but make sure you get paid," Chiun said.

"That's the lesson?" Remo asked. He tensed his body again. He didn't know which hand the ping pong ball would come at him from. He divided his balance between both feet so he could move easily in either direction.

Chiun's hands were moving behind his back as he spoke.

"Of course," he said. "Nothing is more important to an assassin. And although Emperor Smith is a lunatic, he pays on time. If his wishes are for you to call yourself a bodyguard, call yourself a bodyguard." He winked and Remo knew the ping pong assault was only a split second away. "The inventive assassin can always find a way to turn any job into his own special art, and emperors never know the difference."

Suddenly, both Chiun's hands came out from behind his kimono. Remo lowered himself into an at-ready crouch. His hands came up toward his face. Chiun's hands moved at a blur. They lifted toward Remo, then opened. Remo peered intently for the flash of the ping pong ball. But there was no ball. Chiun's hands dropped to his sides.

He smiled again. "Sometimes the threat of an attack is more powerful than the attack itself," he said. "A ping pong ball would not hurt you. But you could be killed by being off balance and tense."

"I liked my explanation of the legend better," Remo said. "You can't trust anybody."

He turned away from Chiun. As he did, he was hit in the back of the head with a ping pong ball. It rebounded of his skull against the wall with a hard piercing rap.

"If you trust no one," Chiun said, "then you never have reason to be surprised."

Remo sighed. "Let's go see Rocco Nobile and start being bodyguards."

As they left their room and walked toward the rented white Lincoln Continental, a burly, dark-haired man with muscular sloping shoulders bulging through his Qiana shirt stepped from a room two doors away from theirs.

He called to Remo.

"Hey, you."

Remo looked at the man. His eyes were dark and his lips were fish-thin. He had big hands which he had clenched tightly at his side. A man under tension, Remo thought.

"You mean me?" Remo asked.

"Yeah, you. You finally finished with that ping pong game?"

"Ping pong? Ping pong?" Remo said. He remembered the exercise. The sound of the balls hitting the wall. "Yeah, we're all done," he said.

"Good thing," the man said.

"Why?"

"Because if you didn't stop, I was coming over to shove those paddles up your ass."

"It's harder to hit the ball that way," Remo said.

"Oh, yeah?"

"Sure. Think about it," Remo said. "You do think, don't you?"

"You're a wise guy, aren't you?" the big man said.

Remo looked into the car at Chiun. Chiun shrugged and Remo thought of Rocco Nobile and said mildly, "Some other time, pal. Some other time."

"Any time," the big man said. He brought his two ham fists together and began cracking his knuckles.

"I won't forget," Remo said as he got into the car, closed the door and drove from the motel lot.

Mark Tolan watched the car go. Ping pong. What kind of faggots played ping pong in the daytime in a motel room? For exercise? Yeah, he'd give them exercise. Yeah. He went back inside his own room where Sam Gregory sat at the window table, drawing maps and charts and tables of organization and plans.

Al Baker was sprawled on the bed watching a television game show whose major premise seemed to be that terminal retardation could be fun. Its minor premise was that all the people on the show were terminally retarded and its conclusion, therefore, was that the show was fun. Al Baker never missed it. He watched three young men, hiding behind a screen, trying to be glib and clever as they were asked questions by a young woman who couldn't see them. Baker fantasized being on the show, sitting on one of the high stools.

"And if we went out together, Number Three, what would we probably do?"

"I'd give you a beef injection, lady," Baker saw himself saying. The girl squealed. "Ooooooh."

"When I'm done with you, you'll be halfway into the cracks on the floor."

At this time in his fantasy, the girl always gasped. "Quick, get rid of the others. I want Number Three. And I want him now." Then she fainted.

Baker never missed a game show. He pictured himself on all of them, writing new scripts, always winning women and money.

"You still watching that crap?"

Baker looked toward the door, where Mark Tolan hulked menacingly.

"Yeah. What's it to you?"

"I hate that show," Tolan said.

His face was twisted into a death's head snarl. He frightened Baker. Tolan was obviously a homicidal maniac and Baker couldn't understand why Sam Gregory had recruited this ding-a-ling.

"I like it," Baker said. Tolan's face twisted some more.

"I'll change it if you want," Baker said. "It's almost over anyway."

"Is there a war movie on?"

"No."

"Then watch anything you want, creep. Maybe you'll get smart if you watch enough shows."

"Will you two stop bickering?" Gregory said, looking up from the table.

"When are we gonna start doing something except sitting around here, listening to some faggots play ping pong next door and watching you draw maps?" Tolan demanded.

"We're waiting for The Lizzard to return," Gregory said. He had taken to calling Nicholas Lizzard "The Lizzard." He thought it gave the operation more of a touch of glamour. He called Al Baker "The Baker." He wanted to give Mark Tolan a name too. It wasn't that he couldn't think of one. He had a lot of them in mind. The Mutilator. The Extincter. The Avenger. It was just that he was afraid any one of them might rub Tolan the wrong way and he might wind up wasting everybody on the team. It wouldn't do for the members of the Rubout Squad to be rubbed out by one of their own. Especially The Eraser, Sam Gregory himself. He had to live. Bay City was just the first. He was going to go on, across the country, town after town, city after city, tracking the mob down in its lair, wherever he found them. They would learn to fear The Eraser.

"What the hell do we need Gizzard for?" Tolan said. "He's as worthless as tits on a bull. Let's get going. Let's go kill somebody."

"Tomorrow," Gregory said quickly. "I'm working up the plans now."

"We going after Nobile?"

"Not yet. First we're going to hit one of those mob businesses that The Baker infiltrated today."

"He couldn't infiltrate a phone booth with a dime," Tolan said, sneering over at Baker who was envisioning himself lying on the beach at Waikiki with the girl from the game show.

Baker didn't answer. He was wondering if the $493 he had in the bank would get him to Hawaii.

Gregory said, "The Baker has found a drug factory on River Street. We're going to hit it tomorrow."