Warren Murphy - The End of the Beginning

"Impossible," Mr. Winch said blandly.

Viaselli's brow dropped. "If it's money, I'll double it. I want the bastard dead, no matter what it costs."

"Then you need pay someone else, not me," Winch said. "Your Norman Felton is already dead." Viaselli carefully took hold of the edge of his desk. "Norman's dead? How do you know?"

Still at the window, Winch turned his head. His face was bland. "Who released your brother-in-law?"

"I don't know," Viaselli admitted. "Some guy. Tony wasn't good at giving a description, but he said the guy had eyes like a dead man. That was the one thing he remembered. That and the fact the guy was whistling 'Born Free' when he let him outta that closet at Norman's apartment."

"Whoever that man is, he is the one who killed your associate. There are probably others with him. You Americans seem to view everything as a team sport. Even assassination. No, your Felton is dead, along with his men. And I would not be concerned that whoever did this thing wants to put you in jail. Whoever is responsible will be coming to kill you, not arrest you."

Viaselli's grip on the desk tightened. His heart was pounding like mad. He could feel the blood rise in his cheeks.

"You have to stop them," Don Carmine insisted.

"I could hold them off," Winch said, nodding. "For a time. But I cannot be with you forever. They will send a man, then another and eventually an army. And there will be that one time. That single, isolated, unguarded instance when they will find you alone. And they will have victory."

"This can't be happening," Don Viaselli said. "This isn't how the game is played in this country. We got laws."

At this, Mr. Winch smiled. Mr. Winch never smiled. Now the mobster saw why. It was the most unnerving thing Don Carmine Viaselli had ever seen. "They will not retreat," Winch warned. "Not yet. They have declared war against you and you against them. They have not suffered enough to make them consider ending it."

Viaselli was having a hard time breathing. "But what about that pervert, Leonard O'Day? Didn't you get him?"

"He and another in Connecticut have been removed. But already others vie to fill their seats. It is always the way. There is never a shortage of politicians."

Viaselli's head was spinning. He had to maintain his grip on the desk to keep from toppling onto the floor.

"I thought I could stop them. Send them a signal. This isn't how it's supposed to play out."

Mr. Winch turned fully from the window. He remained in the shadow, away from where outside eyes might be looking in.

"All is not lost," the Oriental said. "You have made a good start in this war of their making, but you have not yet done enough to insure your safety. As the head of your House, they are coming for you. Who leads theirs?"

Viaselli looked up, blinking away the cobwebs. He tried to concentrate. "The Speaker of the House, you mean?"

"No," Winch said impatiently. "He is not their leader. He does not direct the forces that have been marshaled against you. His is not the one face of all the other white faces in your nation's capital that everyone recognizes."

A dawning realization stretched across Don Viaselli's tan face. With it came a steadying calm. "You think I should whack the President?" he asked; voice strong and even. He released the edge of his desk.

"It has been done before," Mr. Winch replied. "It would paralyze the forces of your enemies. Your power would be unquestioned. They would not dare move against you."

Viaselli's eyes twitched back and forth, studying the corners of the room. He finally looked up. "Nice and quiet. There can't be any trail back to me."

"Of course," Mr. Winch said, his voice oily calm. Don Carmine Viaselli nodded. The deal was struck. He turned slowly in his chair, offering Mr. Winch his back.

"Fool," Nuihc whispered under his breath, so low the word was audible only to himself.

Melting back into the shadows, he passed like a whispered thought from the office, leaving the old buffoon to his unsophisticated plots of revenge.

Chapter 23

As he watched the flickering images on the TV screen in the privacy of his Folcroft quarters, a single perfect tear rolled down the cheek of the Master of Sinanju.

If he was not the Master, he would not have believed his eyes or ears. But his very soul gave witness to it.

Since he had first set sandal to soil, Chiun had thought America an ugly and barren place. A cultural wasteland whose inhabitants wallowed in the unsightly offenses of their own creation. But he was wrong. It was only mostly like that.

Here was art. Here was beauty.

There was a lesson here, even for the Master. Just because a thing seemed on the surface to be completely and utterly squalid and worthless didn't necessarily mean that there was not something worthwhile hidden somewhere in it.

In nature could not a flower grow from a dung heap? Was not a pearl formed by oyster from sand? Such was the case with this land called America. Here was a land of unrivaled ugliness, and yet...

The voices on the television abruptly stilled. In place of them a crudely drawn cartoon figure with a bald head was trying to sell a white female in heels a yellow liquid to clean her dirty floors.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor of his basement room, Chiun blinked away the tears.

The tiny Korean's joy was beyond measure.

He had begun watching America's televised art form during Remo's earliest training sessions. Broadcast daily, the short plays were things of sublime perfection. Timeless, touching studies of the human condition whose message of hope and love transcended all cultures and borders.

The best was As the Planet Revolves. While most of the players on the program were wonderful, the true standout was Rad Rex. The actor played the part of wise and kindly Dr. Wyatt Winston, half brother to Grace Kimberland, whose fourth husband, Royce, had recently been discovered having an affair with Patrice, the scheming matriarch of the Covington family, which was secretly planning to build a textile plant on the site of the Eden Falls School for Wayward Youth and put the displaced orphans to work as slave labor. Dr. Winston had learned about the plot from Patrice Covington's Guatemalan illegal immigrant maid, Rosa, who had been rushed to City General Hospital for emergency bladder surgery. Even though this damning secret could destroy the fortunes of amnesiac pickle magnate Roland Covington, so far Dr. Winston had remained silent.

Dr. Winston had been silent long before Chiun had gone to Arizona with Remo and he was still silent now. Two full months of silence. Every now and then City General's star surgeon would raise a knowing and disapproving eyebrow to the audience, just to let everyone know that he was waiting for the proper moment to disclose the terrible truth.

Such patience. Such acting. Such writing.

"Chiun, those are soap operas," Remo explained in those first, early weeks of training.

"They are windows into the human soul," Chiun replied as he studied the television screen. "Hush."

"Then the human soul is a smokehouse, 'cause I'm looking at a bunch of reeking hams right now."

For his insolence, Chiun touched Remo on the knee. Remo rolled around on the floor in agony for two hours. After that, Remo learned not to interrupt Chiun's dramas.

Even though Remo wasn't here to interrupt now, Chiun knew precisely where he was. Unbeknownst to Smith or Remo, Chiun had spent the past five days following his young pupil.

That was partly Conrad MacCleary's fault. In his dying moments Smith's general had placed a seed of worry in the Master of Sinanju's mind. The old man's concern had proved to be unfounded. The only people bumbling Remo encountered were other bumbling whites.

Still, Chiun didn't consider the time wasted. There was another good reason to follow his pupil. In a way Remo was a representative of the House of Sinanju. A failure on his part would reflect poorly on the House. But Remo had done his work as well as could be expected. He had completed the task he was sent out to perform without getting killed. Once Remo was done, Chiun slipped back to Folcroft with no one the wiser that he'd ever left.