Warren Murphy: Bidding War

"No, but it was written all over the map of his face. You didn't notice?"

"No."

"Not much of a face-reader are you, son?"

"Chiun's always saying I have bad nunchi for his kibun. That means I'm a lousy reader of his moods."

"He's damn perceptive."

"You saying I should go?"

"I'm not saying and I'm not not saying. I'm happy to have you here for as long as you like, Remo. But a man's gotta have more than a place he feels comfortable if he's to flourish. You have only to look at my braves to understand that."

"You don't want me to stay?"

"I don't want you losing your way in life just because you found your origins. Knowing who you are and where you come from, these are things a man has to know. But a man's future is not where he is, but where he's going."

"I don't know where I'm going," Remo admitted.

"You take a step, and then two. Pretty soon you're either making a path or following one. Doesn't matter much which. Just so long as you don't vegetate."

"What's the rush?"

"The rush is we soon enough lay our bones down to die. Time is forever. We aren't. A man has only so many opportunities. The more he lets slip by, the fewer branching paths he's got."

Remo was looking east. "Out there I don't even exist."

"You're standing in your own meat and bones. You exist, all right."

"They robbed me of my life and my last name and what little I had."

"They introduce you to the old chief?" Sunny Joe asked.

"Yeah."

"Then they gave you more than they took away. And that's a fact."

"I don't think I can go back to working for America."

"Then don't. But don't hide from the world, either. Take another path. Life is full of them."

Remo said nothing for a long, long time.

Sunny Joe Roam chuckled.

Remo looked at him curiously.

"I was just thinking of a story the old chief told me about you," Sunny Joe said.

"What's that?"

"Back when you two first met, he tried to teach you some Korean words. Remember?"

"No."

"Hen. Seems he hankered to be properly addressed. Tried to get you to call him Sonsaeng."

Remo smiled. "I remember now. It means 'teacher.' But I kept screwing it up. It came out as 'Saengson,' which means 'fish.' Saengson Chiun. I was calling him Fish Chiun. He turned red every time and accused me of doing it on purpose. Finally he just gave up."

"He about cackled his old head clean off telling me that yarn."

"Yeah?"

"It's a fact. We had a great big laugh over it."

"Chiun's all right. He just thinks there's one way to do everything," Remo said.

"You think about what he means to you, Remo. You don't find that kind of friendship even among your closest kin."

"Well, I'm going to try and catch up on my sleep."

"You remember one other thing while you're about it."

"What's that?" asked Remo.

"The old chief, he saved my life. Took a big risk doing it, too. He knew a man has room in his heart for only one father. He was fit to lose big."

"Yeah. I know."

"You go your own way and he might forgive you, but he'll go to his maker cursing his own poor judgment. Don't you do that to him, Remo Williams. Whatever you do. Don't do that to him. Because the hurt will surely attach itself to you, and you'll go to your own grave cursing your pigheaded stubbornness."

"Chiun wants me to take over as head of the House. I don't know if I can do that."

"You should consider it," said Sunny Joe pointedly. "You're welcome to stay here a spell longer, but there's not much future in it."

Remo frowned. "Let me sleep on it."

"You do that," said Sunny Joe.

And when Remo turned to bid him good-night, there was no sign of the big Sun On Jo.

His eyes gathering visual purple to sharpen his night vision, Remo finally spotted him loping along like a long-legged totem. There was nothing graceful about Sunny Joe's progress, yet the wind carried no sound to Remo's ears. After the moon went behind a low-scudding desert cloud, it was as if he had evaporated.

Remo returned to his hogan. When he fell asleep again, he didn't dream at all.

Chapter Eight

Harold Smith was still sunk in his floral armchair when the sun peeped over the Atlantic.

He had made no progress. And it was time to go to work.

Logging off, he closed his briefcase, took a quick cold shower because it cost less and, after toweling his tight blue-gray skin dry, he passed into the bedroom to select a fresh suit.

His wife slept peacefully, her heavy breathing like a muted bellows in the room.

There were six identical gray three-piece suits hanging in the closet, the oldest one dating back to the late 1940s.

When Harold Smith had come of age, his father had taken him to a Boston tailor for his first suit fitting. When the price came up, Harold had been horrified. First at the exorbitant price tag and second because his father had insisted Harold pay for it himself.

"It is much too expensive, Pater," Harold had said flatly.

"Properly taken care of," his father had said, "a suit made by this concern will last half a lifetime. You may find less-expensive tailors, who use cheaper goods and inferior stitching. But I guarantee that the best three suits you can find elsewhere will all wear out before this one suit has fulfilled its duty."

Harold had frowned. He was going to Dartmouth College in the fall. There were textbooks to purchase and other incidentals.

But he had swallowed his horror and bought the suit. The concern was still in business, and approximately every decade he went back for alterations or a new suit. His father was correct. If that first suit he bought ever came back into style, Harold could wear it again without fear for the stitching.

When he was dressed and knotting his hunter green Darmouth tie, Harold Smith retrieved his suitcase, kissed his oblivious wife on the forehead and drove his habitual route to Folcroft Sanitarium.

It was an ordinary late-October day. It wouldn't remain ordinary very long.

All hope of ordinariness was shattered once Smith had booted up the desktop computer. The overnight trolling programs began announcing themselves.

Smith saved certain files as nonurgent. The strife in Mexico, Macedonia and the former Yugoslavia hadn't developed overnight complications. They could keep.

Smith let out an audible gasp when the screen announced it had been tracking the Master of Sinanju.

Smith called up the file. It showed a string of credit-card charges. The expenses would normally have made Smith pale. But the mere fact that Chiun had resurfaced after all these weeks overcame Smith's natural revulsion at wasting taxpayers' money.

The first charge concerned a flight from Yuma, Arizona, to Phoenix. From Phoenix the Master of Sinanju had flown to New York City.

Oddly enough he hadn't remained there very long. Arrival at LaGuardia was at one in the afternoon, and the next travel charge showed a New York City-to-Boston flight at 3:09.

There the trail ended.

Smith frowned. The last charge he had tracked back in July showed Remo and Chiun flying to Yuma, and after that it was as if they had fallen off the planet. No Yuma-based charges had surfaced.

In fact, no charges at all.

Now Chiun had returned to Boston, where he and Remo lived.

Smith accessed Remo's credit-card account but found it still inactive.

"Odd," he mused. "They go to Yuma then disappear. Now the Master of Sinanju has returned but without Remo."

What could have happened?

A chill washed over Harold Smith as he exited the credit-card files. Had Remo died? Was it possible?

Smith brought up Chiun's credit-card records again. There were incidental charges. Chiun had eaten at a Korean restaurant in midtown Manhattan whose name seemed to be the Soot Bull, but otherwise he hadn't remained in New York long. About three hours.