Warren Murphy: Skull Duggery

Chiun rose to his feet.

"The larynx was crushed throughout?" he inquired.

"Like a sponge. There was a small bruise. But it was very small."

"A fortunate amateur," Chiun pronounced sagely. "He has no doubt squandered his entire life practicing that one blow. It is all he knows. In other situations, against a worthy opponent, he would stand helpless."

"I tangled with the guy-at least, I think he's the guy."

"And?"

"I musta had an off day," Remo admitted, quiet-voiced. "He ran me ragged."

Chiun's mouth formed an O of surprise. "Truly?"

"I am ashamed to admit it, Little Father."

"And you should be ashamed," Chiun admonished. "This man was not white, was he? For if he was white, my shame would know no depths."

"I think he was Chinese."

Chiun shook his head sadly. "Almost as had. Are you certain he was not Korean?"

"The eyes were not Korean. I'm sure of that. His voice sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it."

"You knew him?"

"He wore a mask. The funny thing was, even so, I thought I recognized him."

Chiun cocked an inquisitive head. "You recognized the eyes, or perhaps the lips?"

"I don't think so. If you want the truth, I thought I recognized the mask."

Chiun waved a dismissive hand, saying, "Any idiot may wear a mask."

"This was special," Remo countered. "It was molded to his facial contours. Doesn't make sense, does it?"

"You seldom do."

"There's more."

Chiun lifted thin eyebrows and Remo launched into a long recitation of all that had happened to him since he encountered the black limousine. He went into great detail regarding the mystery of the garage, and then told the Master of Sinanju about the impossible footprints.

"Can you explain any of it?" Remo concluded.

Chiun's eyes grew narrow and steely. He said nothing for many uncomfortable minutes.

"I am not making this up, Chiun," Remo said to break the silence.

"You are mistaken," Chiun said solemnly.

"About what?"

"About everything."

"Those footprints are still there," Remo pointed out.

"You are mistaken," Chiun repeated. "You saw no such thing."

"Who are you to tell me what I saw?" Remo asked testily.

"What you saw is impossible," Chiun lectured. "Therefore, you could not have seen it."

"Which are we talking about-the tire tracks or the footprints?"

"All of them. I do not understand this vanishing car of yours, but no one leaves such footprints. No one living, that is."

"Are we talking ghost?" Remo asked suddenly.

"No, we are talking the dead. And the dead do not walk."

"I saw what I saw," Remo said stubbornly.

"And I say to you what I say to you-do not disturb my sleep with such trifles."

"What's sleep got to do with anything?"

"Sleep," said the Master of Sinanju, "has to do with everything." He got up without another word and padded into his room.

Remo reached out and shut off the VCR. He wondered what the heck was going on.

After a few minutes the smell of incense drifted from Chiun's bedroom. From within, Remo heard the quavering sounds of his master singing. He recognized the old Korean prayers, though not all of the words were understandable. These were very old prayers handed down from the early days of Sinanju. They were prayers beseeching the protection of the village of Sinanju from the great Void.

They made Remo shudder.

He decided to do something about the situation. He went to his own bedroom door and flung it open.

"Rise and shine!" Remo called. "Time for answers."

The Chinese man was seated on Remo's sleeping mat, his head bowed as if in meditation.

He turned at the sound of Remo's voice and reached out for his knapsack, hugging it close to him. He slid around on the mat so Remo couldn't see his face.

Noticing the man's back, Remo frowned. "Do I know you?"

"I do not think so. Not know you."

"There's something familiar about you."

"I do not know you."

"You wouldn't by chance have been driving a black limousine this afternoon, would you?"

"Black limousine!" he said excitedly. "Where you see black limousine?"

"Back at the safe house. What do you know about it?" "Nothing," Zhang Zingzong said quickly.

"Oh, bullshit!" Remo retorted. "You know something."

"Know nothing."

"No, it couldn't have been you. You're too tall," Remo decided.

"Not know what you mean."

"Screw you," Remo said, slamming the door shut after him.

Remo went to a closet and pulled out a handful of straw sitting mats and scattered them on the floor of a spare room. The spare room was completely bare of furniture, although one end was cluttered with fourteen stacked lacquered trunks. Chiun's precious traveling luggage.

Remo stretched out on the mats and ran the events of the afternoon through his mind. They were no clearer than before.

From the other room, Chiun's prayers continued like a singsong dirge.

Because he felt tired, Remo drifted off to sleep.

He didn't know how long he slept. He had wanted only to nap, but was awakened by a high-pitched argument in progress.

Remo rolled up onto one elbow. The argument was between Chiun and the Chinese student. It was in Chinese. Remo couldn't make out a word of Chinese.

The argument escalated from a kind of husky back-and-forth to a high-pitched volley of accusations and response.

Chiun was doing the accusing. The Chinese student was hotly denying something. Or everything.

"A little less noise out there, huh?" Remo called through the door.

The arguing subsided for a pregnant minute.

Then it started up again, low and intense, but swiftly escalating in violence and heatedness.

Finally Remo got to his feet and stormed past the suddenly quiet pair and out the front door.

"If this is how it's going to be all night," Remo barked, "I'm going to check into a motel."

He was not stopped by Chiun's voice on his way out, which both surprised and disappointed him. The shouting resumed. It was going hot and heavy as Remo pulled out of the driveway. He laid down a hundred yards of rubber, hoping it would awaken Harold W. Smith, the architect of his misery.

Chapter 7

Remo Williams tossed on the mattress pad.

It was too comfortable. He had left home without his bed mat, which the Chinese student was using anyway. So he had gone to a Motel Six, which he knew from past experience put mattress pads on their beds. And they had left the light on for him.

Remo had stripped the lumpy bed of its coverings and laid the pad on the rug. There, he went to sleep. Years of Sinanju training had made sleeping on an elevated surface as unrewarding as sex.

The pad was too thick, so Remo tossed and turned through the night. His thoughts were of the Master of Sinanju.

Remo had worked with Chiun for two decades now. They had grown close in that period of time, although their relationship had been very rocky, especially during the early years, when Chiun had considered the training of a white an odious task. In those days, CURE security was crucial. As its enforcement arm, Remo was an experiment, one which might be terminated at any time by presidential decree.

In those days, it had been Chiun's responsibility to execute Remo if the order came from Smith. The relationship between Master and pupil had nevertheless flowered under this dark cloud, in part because of the great promise that Remo had shown and in part because of the respect each man had developed for the other.

Until the day, in the midst of a grave US-USSR crisis in which the President had ordered CURE disbanded, Smith had given the termination order to Chiun. Remo had never forgotten that he was partnered with a man who considered assassin's work a high calling, one who would kill anyone anywhere on orders or for the correct amount of gold, and not think twice.