Warren Murphy: Skull Duggery

Only the dealer was in a position to see the contents of the box. He saw them for less than a second. The image of the box's contents registered and his thin eyes seemed to explode like twin blasts of surprise.

This time he did drop the box.

Zhang Zingzong dived for it, his captured shirt collar tearing free with the violence of his lunge, leaving the man who had been holding him with only a ragged strip of cloth.

Zhang scooped up the box, pushed the contents back inside, and locked the lid in one breathless motion. He rolled out of the reach of grasping hands. A foot lashed out, scraping skin off his temple. The glancing blow barely slowed him down.

Zhang Zingzong plunged for a table. He upended it. The others recoiled from the crash of platters and flying knives and forks and chopsticks.

Zhang was halfway to the door when it suddenly opened and he found himself looking into the deadliest eyes he had ever seen.

They resembled gray agates, hard and clear. They were not Chinese eyes, although they were Asian. The face that served as their setting was like a parchment death mask.

Zhang stopped dead in his tracks, uncertain what to do.

"You are Zhang Zingzong?" the vision asked in querulous but flawless Mandarin.

"S-Shi," he breathed.

"I am the Master of Sinanju," the Asian intoned, lifting his arms as if in blessing. His draperylike sleeves expanded like wings. He resembled a monarch butterfly emerging from the chrysalis of a human mummy.

"I . . . I do not understand," Zhang stuttered.

"Know this, Zhang Zingzong," the being who called himself the Master of Sinanju said. "As long as you are under my protection, no harm will befall you."

Zhang Zingzong had nothing to say to that.

Behind him, the others were stepping around the upturned tables, their padding feet cracking broken platters into smaller pieces of porcelain.

A voice called out. The dealer's smoky voice.

"Who are you, old turtle?"

In perfect Cantonese, the Master of Sinanju replied:

"I have spoken my title. My name does not matter."

"This isn't your quarrel," he spat. "Go now!"

The Master of Sinanju beckoned to Zhang, saying, "Come to my side, Zhang Zingzong."

Zhang took a single step forward. A fist grabbed a bunch of his shirtback, stopping him.

"I cannot," Zhang whispered.

"Then I will come to you," said the Master of Sinanju.

And with a cry like a screaming bird of prey, the Master of Sinanju spread his monarch wings further and took to the air.

Later, Zhang Zingzong realized that the Master of Sinanju had not sprouted wings. But the combination of outspread arms and wild cry created the illusion of a descending winged creature.

Zhang recoiled in fear of the flapping apparition.

The fist at his back released him. A man grunted. Another screamed in pain. A table splintered under the sudden impact of a falling body. Glass broke.

Zhang looked toward the sounds. He caught a sudden vision of a man flying toward himself at full speed. The man's two converging faces met in a splintering of suddenly red glass.

The man had been sent into a wall mirror, Zhang realized.

Zhang straightened slowly, his jaw hanging open. All around him, his erstwhile captors sprawled in various states of ruin.

The butterfly-garbed Master of Sinanju stood before him, his hands seeking one another in the closing sleeves of his kimono.

"Who are these men?" he asked coldly.

"Cheaters!" Zhang said quickly. "They took all my money in a crooked card game."

"He lies," a voice mumbled brokenly. "He cheated us."

A sandal whipped out, silencing the voice that had spoken.

"Gather your things," instructed the Master of Sinanju, eyeing the clumped form he had just silenced.

Hastily Zhang Zingzong found his knapsack. He stuffed the teakwood box inside, covering it with discarded bits of clothing.

"You have all your possessions?" the Master of Sinanju asked.

"Not my money. In the back."

"Then get your money, Zhang Zingzong."

Zhang went to the back. There he scooped up the pot, taking not only his money but also that belonging to the others. He hesitated, his eyes furtive.

Then he slipped out the back way, into an alley, and pelted toward the street.

He did not know who this Master of Sinanju was, but he could trust no one and would trust no one.

As he ran, some inner voice caused him to look behind him.

Like some vampire, the Master of Sinanju was pursuing him. Panting, Zhang ducked into a stinking alley. He slid on the packed snow, pulled himself up, and kept running.

There was an opening at the other end.

He looked behind him. There was no sign of the black-and-gold-silk-clad figure. But Zhang knew he would never relent. His own footprints in the snow betrayed the route of his escape.

He redoubled his efforts, but then, at the alley's opposite end, the Master of Sinanju floated down, silent, majestic, and so utterly inescapable that Zhang Zingzong simply gave up.

He stopped in his tracks and watched as the diminutive figure of the old Korean approached him, saying, "Why did you run, Chinese? Are you so ignorant that you do not know that there is no escape from Sinanju?"

Zhang had nothing to say to that. He wondered who had betrayed him this time.

Chapter 4

Remo Williams calmed down after the first hour. He spent the second watching TV. By the end of the third hour he was beginning to wonder what was keeping Chiun.

Maybe Smith had let Chiun make his call. He couldn't imagine security-conscious Harold W. Smith allowing the Master of Sinanju to make a call that would undoubtedly lead to Chiun going on television, confessing to the assassination of Amelia Earhart, and probably making cryptic allusions to his secret work for America. But anything was possible these days.

Well into hour four, Remo couldn't resist pulling aside a living-room curtain and looking across the carport to the window of Smith's dining room.

Smith and his wife were seated at a table, eating. Smith looked more like he was taking castor oil by spoon, but that meant little. It was a permanent Harold Smith expression.

Remo saw no sign of Chiun.

Concerned, he reached for the telephone, remembered it was out of commission, and went out the front door instead. He crossed over to Smith's front door, his footprints barely denting the snow.

Remo hammered on the brass lion's-head knocker until the paint began to crack around the its edges.

The door opened a crack. Harold Smith peered out like a spinster with recurring nightmares of the Boston Strangler.

"Remo!" he whispered. "What are you doing here?"

"Looking for Chiun. Where is he?"

Smith paled. "He's not with you?"

"No. Last I heard, he was about to barge into your life."

"That was hours ago. I gave him his assignment."

"Damn," Remo said. "He must have gone without me." Responding to Smith's puzzled expression, Remo added; "We had a fight."

"He mentioned you've been acting up."

"Acting up!" Remo exploded. "Last Chiun was talking, he wanted to go on the Ten-Thousand-Dollar Reward show and confess to bumping off Amelia Earhart."

"He did mention it," Smith admitted. "Do you suppose it was true?"

"I don't know. He also claimed he'd once worked for Fu Manchu. "

"A fictitious character, if I remember my childhood reading."

"You read them too?" Remo asked in surprise. "I always thought spreadsheets were your idea of literary excitement."

Smith said nothing.

"Where can I find him?" Remo said at last.

"New Rochelle. There was an attack on a safe house overnight. A Chinese student who escaped the Tiananmen Square demonstrations is missing, his guard murdered. You and Chiun were to look into it."