Warren Murphy: Balance of Power

"Wait here." Remo ran back to the tavern, where a multitude of uniformed policemen had gathered to escort the customers into a waiting paddy wagon. He checked the wagon, and he checked the bar, but Daniels was gone. "I've lost him," Remo said. "I lost my target because of your egg juice. I just blew my assignment."

"Do not speak to me, perverted one," Chum said as he strode briskly toward their parked car. "I wish to be returned to my flowerless domicile, where I will make preparations to return to my village and accept the dishonor that has befallen the House of Sinanju."

"Chiun, will you please calm down? I wasn't trying to expose you. I thought you were bleeding, that's all. I didn't know you'd go to pieces over a pickled egg."

"Ugh. The very thought of a pickled egg is revolting. And my kimono is destroyed. It must be burned."

"You have at least a hundred more."

"And if a mother who has five children sees one of them drowned in egg juice, does she say merely that she has four others and blot the fifth child from her memory? This was my favorite robe. It is irreplaceable. And all for your silly assignment, which you did not even complete successfully. It should not have been difficult to assassinate a man whose belly had been recently stuffed with bloody beef, white bread, and fountains of alcohol."

"How do you know what he eats?"

"I smelled it."

"In the bar?"

"No, no. Idiot. One could smell nothing in that place to compare with its own stomach-shattering fragrances. I smelled it outside, just before you attempted to display my belly to the world."

"Outside where?"

"Fool. On the fire escape. Great billows of bloody beef and an alcoholic beverage based on mesquite were emanating from his mouth. Had your breathing been adequate, you could have perceived it as well."

Remo looked at the fire escape platform just above the front door.

"The fire escape? You saw him up there?"

"Why are you constantly amazed by what I say?" Chiun screamed. "I told you he was on the fire escape. Therefore, I obviously saw him. Perhaps you should join the ranks of your CIA. A person of your intelligence should be most welcome there."

Remo exhaled deeply. "I don't believe it," he said. "I just don't believe it. You knew I had to get to Daniels. You saw Daniels. And you didn't tell me."

"It is not my responsibility to do your smelling for you," Chiun sniffed. "You have evidently grown so obtuse and perverted that you cannot even summon your olfactory senses to assist you. A fine assassin. Nothing but a thug. Why should I strain my powers to assist a thug in eliminating such a magnificent specimen of a man?"

"Wait a minute. Two hours ago, you were telling me that Daniels was just another target, just another mission for the good of Sinanju."

"I said nothing of the kind."

"You did too, Chiun."

"Then I have changed my mind. Your Mr. Daniels is a great man. A superb man. His leap to the fire escape was astonishing, for one who has tortured his body for so long."

"I don't get it," Remo said. "Did he see you?"

"Of course. One does not look upon the glory of Sinanju without notice."

"What did he do when he saw you?"

"Do? Why, he did only what was proper and fitting. He saluted me."

"I see. Thanks. Thanks a very large pile, Chiun. He could be dangerous, you know."

"So could you, former son, if you had not grown fat and slothful and still knew how to treat the Master of Sinanju with respect to his person."

"One salute. You let him get away for one cheap little salute."

"It was a sign of respect," Chiun said stubbornly. "Also a work of art."

"Oh, come on. Now that's really too much. A work of art! A work..."

"The salute was performed while Mr. Daniels balanced on the balls of his feet, exquisitely, on the railing of the fire escape, out of the way of the window up there."

"Big deal," Remo said, opening the car door for Chiun.

"And he was dancing. The dance of the wind." Chiun demonstrated, his arms waving at his sides, his head turning slow circles.

"That's not dancing. That's weaving. Daniels was drunk as a pig." He slammed the door.

"Oh, to have had this specimen as a youth. To have been able to pass on the wisdom of Sinanju to one who dances even while poisoned, instead of a crazed pervert who desires to undress his master in the street."

They were silent all the way back to the motel. "Are you going to fix dinner?" Remo asked.

"Why should I eat? My body has already been desecrated."

"Okay, I'll fix dinner."

"What a specimen," Chiun reminisced, smiling dreamily. He saluted the wall.

"I wish you'd quit this."

Chiun sighed. "It was only an old man's remembrance of his one brief moment of recognition in this disrespectful world," he said. He saluted again.

The phone rang. "Please answer the telephone, Remo," Chiun said. "I am too worn and broken to exert myself."

Remo snorted. "You know I always answer the phone."

It was Smith.

"Have you completed the assignment?" he asked, his voice tense.

"No. Thanks to the Master of Sinanju and his appreciation of alcoholic ballet, I have not."

"Good."

"Good?"

"You see." Chiun interjected. "It is not only I who appreciates this fine human. The emperor also sees his grace and seeks to reward him for it."

"You've got to keep him alive," Smith said.

"What for?"

"Because someone's trying to kill him."

"Yeah. I am."

"Not any more. That envelope you couriered to me was made from paper fabricated in Hispania. There's some kind of connection. I can't get a fix on Denise Daniels yet, but that could take a while. Anyway, if somebody is trying to kill Daniels, it may be that he knows something... something of value to the U.S. That being the case, he ought to be kept alive until we know what he knows."

"This is crazy. I was supposed to kill Daniels, but now that somebody else is trying to kill him, I've got to save him. Maybe that makes sense to you, Smitty, but it doesn't make sense to me."

"Just let him do what he wants to do. Maybe it will stir the pot. But keep him alive. And Remo?"

"What?"

"That was good work, remembering to pick up the pieces of paper from the envelope."

Remo looked over to Chiun, who was saluting passersby on the street below with a jaunty flick of his wrist. "Thanks," Remo said. He hung up.

Chiun was beaming.

"I'm glad you're having such a good time," Remo said. "Personally, none of this makes any sense to me."

"It makes perfect sense, brainless one." Chiun leaped to his feet as lightly as a cloud. "All emperors are crazy, and Smith is the craziest of them all. I will cook dinner."

He padded toward the kitchen humming a tuneless Korean melody.

Bernard C. Daniels awoke in a flophouse two doors down from Mickey's, his home being three blocks away and therefore too far to walk after several days of riotous drinking throughout the town of Weehawken.

He rummaged around in his pockets. The two hundred dollars was missing. Well, I hope I enjoyed some of it, he thought as he scratched the tracks of a flea that had made its home on his scalp.

Then he discovered something that made him feel very sad. His credit at Mickey's Pub was no longer good.

He should have asked the Grand Vizier for more. But then, that would have been gone by now, too, he realized.

"What day is it?" he asked the bartender.

"It's Friday, Barney."

He looked at the luminous clock over the bourbons, scotches and ryes which rested atop planks of wood where the bar's mirrors had been. It read 8:30. It was already dark outside. "I'd better go," he said.

If he didn't hurry for his appointment with the woman, he would be late. Four days late instead of three.