Warren Murphy - The Ultimate Death

"Look who's talking, leather-shoes."

"Plastic falls apart."

"So does a cow, once you've ripped its skin off."

"They didn't tell us at Three-G that we couldn't wear the stuff," someone pointed out.

"Maybe that just proves they don't know everything at Three-G!" Remo's accuser crowed triumphantly.

"What is this Three-D?" Chiun asked Remo.

Before Remo had a chance to shrug, a grimy finger was extended between them, indicating a large, glistening building on a promontory above, overlooking the Poulette complex on the valley floor. "Three-G," the man intoned with an almost religious reverence. "Heaven on earth to all true Vegans." He turned back to the others.

A mini-shouting match ensued within the group. Remo and Chiun took this as an opportunity to slip through the crowd, past the small security booth and onto the grounds of Poulette Farms.

Behind them, one of the protestors was tearfully removing his leather sandals. Sobbing, he cuddled the tattered shoes to his chest as if they were a stillborn baby and blubbered, "But I'm a good herbivore!"

At the rear of the crowd, Mary Melissa Mercy lowered her sign.

Somewhere behind the brilliantly reflective windows in the building up on the hill, the Leader stood sentinel over the proceedings on the valley floor. She raised her hand in a quiet sign of victory, even though she knew the gesture to be futile.

The first trap was about to be sprung. The Leader's vengeance would be absolute.

Mary handed her placard to another protestor and hurried up the road to Three-G.

Getting inside the Poulette Farms office complex proved to be as trying as penetrating the gate, Remo found. A bored guard sat inside a bagel-shaped desk in the main foyer. Behind him were huge poster-sized blow-ups of a man with features that were most definitely poultry-like, surrounded by a bevy of beautiful women. The women were invariably blond, and the man was always holding a denuded chicken. They were still photos taken from Poulette's famous television commercials.

"Remo MacLeavy," Remo said, flashing a plastic badge that identified him as a Department of Agriculture inspector.

"And he is . . . ?" the guard asked, indicating Chiun.

"With me," Remo said coolly.

"I would see the Chicken King," Chiun demanded.

"ID?" the guard asked in a tired voice.

"I am Chiun. That is all you need know."

"Yeah, right," said the guard. He motioned to Remo. "You can pass. He stays here."

"C'mon, pal," Remo said. "He gets testy when he's held up."

"Sorry," the guard replied. "Not without proper ID. We've had a lot of trouble with these protestors lately," he explained.

"Do I resemble one of those cretins?" Chiun sniffed.

The guard sized up the tiny Korean. "Actually, you do look kind of old for a hippie. But then, the ones that are left are getting along in years too." He squinted and looked Chiun in the face. "How old are you, pops-a hundred?"

Wrong thing to say. Remo knew it the moment the words vibrated along his eardrums. But there was nothing he could do about it.

Chiun's eyes became as wide as pie plates. His mouth fixed in an angry line. Remo took a precautionary step backward.

When they exited the lobby a moment later the guard was lying atop his desk, his arms pinned like wings in the sleeves of his jacket, his legs trussed up and knotted together with his dull-blue uniform tie. He looked for all the world like a Thanksgiving turkey. A bony one.

The girl knelt in the center of the wide desk, her head bobbing up and down in time with the seated man's joyful cries.

"That's right," Henry Cackleberry Poulette panted breathlessly. "Oh, do it, baby. Uh-huh, uh-huh. Don't hold back."

"I'm doing it, Mr. Poulette," the girl complained. Her tightly wrapped derriere was jutting up into the air. Just then some of her long blond hair escaped from the tangled knot at the back of her head and dropped in front of her face. "Oh, great," she complained, pulling the now moist hair out of the way.

"Don't stop now!" Poulette screeched.

The secretary sighed, tucked her fists up into her armpits, and began flapping them once more. "You know, some people might think this was kind of weird," she whined. She began moving her head up and down once again, grabbing up mouthfuls of corn from a feeding tray positioned in the center of the desk's blotter.

"You aren't paid to think," Poulette said. He had just finished up the job at hand and was straightening himself up.

"No, I'm paid to act like a hen," the girl muttered, inching her way carefully down to the thickly carpeted floor.

"I'll let another breeder know when I'm ready again," Poulette said, with a dismissive flick of his scrawny wrist. "You may join the rest of the brood."

The girl had adjusted the seams on her form-hugging skirt, and was in the process of pulling the office door open, when an elderly Oriental stormed through it with a haughty flourish. He was followed by a handsome, almost cruel-looking man of about thirty, with thick wrists and the most exciting eyes she had ever seen.

"Hi," said the secretary, pulling her blond hair free from its bow and allowing it to spill around her shoulders in her most practiced provocative manner. She smiled at the young man.

"You have corn stuck in your teeth," Remo said, pointing.

The woman clapped an embarrassed hand over her mouth and turned her back.

"Who are you birds?" Henry Poulette demanded.

"You," Chiun declared, advancing on Poulette. "Chicken King."

Henry Cackleberry Poulette's neck extended from his highly starched collar like a jack-in-the-box. His head jerked spasmodically to one side, and his triangular lips squeezed into a pucker.

"Who the hell are you?" he demanded. Without waiting for a reply, he shouted at his secretary. "Breeder! Get away from that capon! And get some of my security roosters up here!"

Shaken from her distraction, the secretary darted away from Remo and into the outer office.

"MacLeavy, USDA," Remo said by way of introduction. He indicated the Master of Sinanju. "My associate. He's into ducks."

"Anseriformologist, huh? I don't see many of your kind."

"Your ducks are poisoned, King of Chickens!" Chiun accused. "You will explain this!"

"Ducks? We don't have ducks here." Poulette sat back down. "Poulette Farms produces the finest chickens in the world, but no ducks. They're waterfowl. I'm a poultry man. Strictly poultry."

Remo held out the bill of lading Chiun had acquired at the Hinomaru Japanese Supermarket. It bore, in fine print, the name "Poulette Farms." "Says duck here," he said in a bored tone.

Poulette shrugged his bony shoulders. "Must be a forgery. Not surprising. My name on a package of wings is good for a thirty-cent markup over my competitors' birds."

"Liar!" Chiun slammed a palm down on the desk top with such vehemence that the desk separated at every joint and dowel, falling into its component parts all around Henry Cackleberry Poulette.

Poulette scrambled to his feet, blubbering, "No lie! Truth! Truth! Poulette Farms is the single greatest distributor of plump and juicy chickens in the United States! If you promise to leave now, I'll give you one! Best on the lot! Hell, I'll even throw in one of my secretaries!"

In a flurry of movement visible only to Remo, Chiun was around the wrecked desk and hovering above Poulette, his hazel eyes ablaze.

"Do you deny a conspiracy between yourself and my avaricious son?"

Poulette seemed bewildered. "Son?" he asked, glancing to Remo for assistance.

"That'd be me," said Remo, touching his T-shirt front with a thumb.

"For the moment," Chiun said over his shoulder.

"Never met him before in my life!" Poulette said quickly. "We've got a couple of dozen USDA inspectors at the plant during normal shifts, but he isn't one of them."