Warren Murphy: Skull Duggery

The thought sent Remo back into the house, where he removed the agent's right shoe.

Returning, he pressed it into one right-shoe mark of the unidentified footprint.

The agent's sole lines overlapped. They were too long and broader at the heel. Disgustedly Remo tossed the shoe into a drift.

"Okay, it's not him," he said. "So it's gotta be someone else." He rubbed his chin, unmindful of the snow collecting in his thick dark hair. It was melting and drops were starting to rill down the back of his neck and behind the ears. He ignored the shivery sensation.

"Let's say they doubled back," Remo said. "The tall guy with the fur hat goes in. But where does he go? He doesn't come out the back. Therefore he's still in the house. So it's the chauffeur who comes out. Trouble is, he never went in-unless he went in over an hour ago. And if he did that, how could I have fought him? Unless he's twins."

The thought caused Remo's eyes to gleam. The gleam faded.

"But if he's twins," Remo muttered in disappointment, "where is the other one? And where are the tracks of the guy I saw get in back of the limo?"

Remo was roused from his puzzle by the distant sound of sirens. He looked up and saw sleepy-eyed people emerging from their homes. They pointed to the unconscious motorist at the wheel of his crashed car.

Remo decided this would have to be a police matter. He wasn't going to solve it.

He got into his car and took off. As he turned a corner, he saw a dog sleeping in a snowbank as if it were a perfectly natural thing for a dog to be doing.

"That explains the dog," he mumbled. "But not the footprints. "

Chapter 6

Less than an hour after his mysterious experience in New Rochelle, Remo pulled into his own driveway in a foul mood.

He went around the front, noticing no footprints on his walkway.

"Chiun's not here," Remo muttered. "Damn."

But as he fumbled for his key at the front door, the chatter of British-accented conversation drifted through the wood.

"What!" Remo keyed the lock open and pushed the door in.

"Chiun! What are you doing here!" he demanded.

Chiun, Reigning Master of Sinanju, did not deign to turn his eyes from the big TV, acknowledging his pupil only with his voice and a tightening of his seamed mask of a face.

"I live here, graceless one," he said. "Now, be quiet. I am occupied."

"I've spent half the afternoon looking for you," Remo shouted back hotly.

"I would think that pleasure would attend the successful conclusion of so arduous a quest, but the white mind is forever a closed book even to one as perceptive as I."

"Don't get snotty with me. Smith said we had an assignment."

"I had an assignment," Chiun sniffed. "You were not a part of my latest agreement with Emperor Smith."

"He told me you soaked him for triple the ten thousand dollars," Remo said, his hands resting on his hips.

Chiun's face wrinkled in disgust. "I would not use the word 'soaked,' " he said haughtily. "I bargained."

"Well, you can leave my ten percent on the kitchen table."

"You are not entitled to ten percent of my labor."

"Why the hell not?" Remo want to know. "No, don't tell me. That's why you went off on your own."

Chiun allowed a faint smile to wreathe his paper-thin lips.

"Perhaps next time you will not hesitate to place important phone calls when I ask this of you," he said sternly.

"Fat chance," Remo retorted.

"Spoken like a true fathead. Now, be silent."

"It's on tape. You can shut it off for a minute."

"It will dispel the mood the players have so deftly striven to create," Chiun pointed out.

Remo looked at the screen. A group of people was gathered in a typical upper-middle-class British drawing room, chatting on in refined tones about a variety of oblique subjects. The word "utterly" was repeated three times by three different actors.

"How can you watch this tripe?" Remo demanded.

"Because the characters keep their clothes on their bodies like civilized persons," Chiun sniffed.

"What about Smith's all-important Chinese student? I assume you were chasing around after him. And where were you all this time?"

"Where any sensitive person who seeks a missing Chinese person would have gone."

Remo looked his question.

"Chinatown, of course," Chiun explained.

"Oh, of course," Remo said archly. "Everyone knows the Chinese are drawn to Chinatown like freaking lemmings to a cliff."

"Something like that," Chiun said vaguely.

"Go on," Remo invited, folding his arms.

Chiun watched the screen as he spoke. "Knowing that this man was Chinese," he continued, "I knew that if he were abducted, it would have been by another Chinese-for who else would place any value in such a person? And if he had become lost, I knew that, even lost in a strange land, he would go there to be among his kind. And being Chinese, he would seek out a Chinese gambling den."

"How'd you figure that?"

"Everyone knows the Chinese are notorious gamblers."

"Well, I don't."

"I do. It is in their nature, along with laziness."

"That's the worst load of crap I ever heard. So you didn't find him and you gave up, and the assignment is unfinished, is that it?"

The door to Remo's bedroom opened and a frightened Asian face poked out uncertainly. He looked at Remo.

"Master Chiun, who this person?"

"What's he doing in my room!" Remo demanded.

"Master Chiun, who is this lofan?"

"What did he call me?" Remo demanded of Chiun.

"He called you a white man," Chiun explained. "Do not be insulted. He is new to these shores."

"I'm not insulted."

"I would be," Chiun said aridly.

The Chinese man repeated his question. "Master Chiun, who is this lofan?"

"This is Remo," Chiun answered, adding, "my valet."

"My ass!" Remo exploded. "You get out of my room! Right now!"

The Chinese man hastily slammed the door shut.

"You have frightened my houseguest," Chiun complained. "Guest! You brought him here? What about security? What about-"

"Smith knows. It was his suggestion."

"Now Smith is giving away my bedroom to any old vagabond who strays into trouble," Remo complained.

"That is not any person," Chiun countered. ""That is Zhang Zingzong. He is very famous, even if he is Chinese."

"Never heard of him."

"That does not mean he is not famous. May I finish watching my program now?"

"You know," Remo said, putting his hands back on his hips, "of all people, I thought you'd be the last one to let a Chinese guy stay under his roof."

"One makes certain exceptions for the privileged."

Remo growled. "Are you by any chance charging him rent?"

"Of course not," Chiun said in an offended tone.

"Good."

"I am charging him room and board," Chiun added. "It is not the same. There is no lease, for example."

Remo threw up his hands. "This is ridiculous. Look, we gotta talk. I just came from that safe house."

"It is improbably named."

"Tell me about it. The FBI guard is dead."

"They are paid to fall in the line of duty. Soldiers love their glory. Who are we to criticize them if they wish to throw away their lives will-nilly?"

"He was taken out by a larynx stroke. Clean, too."

"Many have copied the larynx stroke of Sinanju," Chiun intoned, video-screen light washing his attentive face. "It is regrettable that we do not get royalties."

"Yeah, well, the guy who did it did it almost as good as me."

"Have I not always said your bent elbow would bring you to ruin?"

"Almost as good as you," Remo added.

The Master of Sinanju wrinkled his offended nose. "I will not be- insulted."

"I speak the truth, Little Father," Remo said with quiet earnestness.

And hearing the suddenly respectful tone of his pupil's voice, the Master of Sinanju lifted a long-nailed finger. The remote control clicked. The VCR ceased its quiet whirring, the picture frozen in distortion.