Warren Murphy - Last Rites

"That looks like Meteor Crater," he said to Chiun. The Master of Sinanju looked out, sniffed and said, "I see a great hole surrounded by desolation."

Remo pulled from his wallet a square of paper that had been folded many times. It was sealed in plastic with Scotch tape. He undid the tape and unfolded the paper.

The black grease-pencil sketch featured a sad-eyed young woman with long dark hair, framing a handsome oval face. A police sketch artist had made it, based on Remo's description after his mother's spirit had appeared to him the first time months before. Ever since, Remo had carried it everywhere he went.

"She said my father sometimes lived among the stars and sometimes where the great star fell," Remo said softly.

"I see a hole in the ground. No star."

Remo hit the overhead stewardess-call button. Every stewardess on the plane was suddenly beside him, straightening hair and uniform skirts and moistening lipsticked mouths.

"What state are we over?" he asked the assembled stewardess crew.

"Suck my toes till they're wrinkled, and I'll tell you," offered one.

That particular stewardess was pushed to the rear and all but sat upon by the others.

"Arizona," the rest chorused helpfully.

"Thank you," said Remo, dismissing the flight crew. When they refused to dismiss, he carefully folded the drawing and replaced it in his wallet, taking his time and trying to look absorbed.

They were still there when he looked up. "Was that your mother?" one asked.

"How'd you know?" Remo asked, genuinely surprised.

"She has your eyes. Anyone could see that." Hearing that, the Master of Sinanju suddenly flew out of his seat like an angry hen and shooed the stewardesses to the back of the plane.

When he returned to his seat to receive the gratitude of his pupil, Remo had all but fallen asleep in his seat. The Master of Sinanju didn't wake him. But he did sit very close, with one ear cocked to catch any syllables Remo might speak in sleep.

RED POPPIES FILLED a valley where herons swooped. There was a clear, crystalline light that was everywhere but seemed to have no source. It was not sunlight. There was no sun in the vaulting blue sky.

Striding through the poppies, lifting his skirted legs in high, purposeful steps came a small-boned Korean. "Chiun?" Remo blurted.

But as the figure drew near, Remo saw that it was not Chiun. The man resembled Chiun. He was old, his face seamed and wrinkled and papery, his eyes the same clear, ageless hazel.

The figure walked up to Remo and stopped abruptly. No particle of warmth came over his face as he looked Remo up and down. "You are very tall."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"I have never seen a man so tall. Or so pale."

"That's how we grow where I come from. Tall and pale."

"Is the blood in your veins as red as mine?"

"Yep," Remo said warily.

"Your blood and my blood. They are the same blood?"

"Same color anyway."

"I cannot fight one of my own blood."

"Glad to hear it," Remo said dryly, not letting his guard down.

"I have something for you."

"Yeah?"

And reaching behind his back, the old Korean grabbed the jeweled hilt of a sword that Remo could have sworn was not there a moment before.

When it came into the clear light, Remo saw that it was the Sword of Sinanju.

"I give custody of this sword to you as a token of recognition that the blood in your veins is the same as the blood flowing through mine."

And the sword suddenly reversed in the old Korean's hands so the jeweled hilt was offered to Remo.

When Remo hesitated, the old Korean urged, "Take it."

"No," said Remo. "Why not?"

"I haven't earned it yet."

A warm light came into the old Korean's eyes. "That is an excellent answer. But I ask you to hold it for me because it is very heavy and I am very old."

"All right," said Remo, reaching out for the hilt. The moment he laid hands upon it, he knew he had made a mistake. Something coldly sharp pierced the pad of his thumb.

"Ah!" said Remo. "Damn it."

The other's voice turned cold and contemptuous. "You have disgraced the blood in your veins. For you do not know the lesson of Cho."

Remo looked at the blood coming from his thumb. There was a drop of it on the barb in the sword's hilt, which had sprung out the moment he applied pressure. "That had better not have been poisoned."

"It was not. But it might have been."

"You Cho?"

"No. I am Kojing."

And Master Kojing suddenly turned on his heel and stormed back into the field of red poppies.

"Kojing! Wait! Don't you have something to tell me?"

"Yes. Do not bleed over my poppies."

REMO WOKE up.

"Damn," he said.

"What is it?" asked Chiun. "I met Kojing."

"Yes?"

"He handed me the Sword of Sinanju hilt first, and I fell for it."

"I told you the lesson of Cho," Chiun hissed.

"A zillion years ago. I'm lucky to remember last Tuesday the way you're running my tail off."

Frowning, Remo looked out the window at the deeply ridged red mountains of Arizona and said to himself, "I wonder what Kojing was going to tell me?"

"Do not bleed all over the seat," sniffed Chiun.

"What did you say?"

And when he looked at his left hand, Remo saw blood coming out of his thumb. "You stuck me while I was sleeping," Remo accused.

"You have disgraced me before my great-great-great-grandfather."

"That how far back Kojing goes?"

"No, but I am in my end days and cannot spend an entire afternoon repeating the word great simply because there is no term in English to describe Kojing's relationship to me."

Remo checked the seatback pouch for something to wipe his hand and, finding nothing suitable, reluctantly hit the call button.

The first stewardess took one look at Remo's hand and offered to kiss it to make it better. Remo declined. The second bit her own hand and offered to become Remo's blood sister. Remo declined that honor, as well.

In the end he let them take turns sucking his thumb, but only after they swore they weren't Anne Rice fans.

Chapter 22

An unfortunate series of misunderstandings had forced underworld figure Vinnie "Three Dogs" Cerebrini to go underground.

Vinnie had been a soldier in the D'Ambrosia crime family, out of San Francisco. For his capo he had killed many times. No one questioned his loyalty. No one questioned his manhood. No one.

Until the Frank "the Fence" Feely hit.

Vinnie had gotten caught on camera coming out of an Alameda warehouse five minutes after 1:00 a.m. on the night a low-life welcher named Frank Feely died. That was unfortunate, because the established time of death according to the coronor's report was 1:05 in the morning of the twenty-fifth of February. The security camera recorded both date and time. Those were the breaks.

No problem there. The D'Ambrosia family had lawyers-"Three Dogs," Don Silvio D'Ambrosia had assured him after word went out that he was a wanted man, "you will surrender. And we will get you out this very day."

"But they got me dead-bang."

It was an unfortunate choice of words. But Vinnie didn't know then. No one knew it then.

"We have lawyers, Vincenzo. Turn yourself in. We will go your bail, and the trial will end in a very good acquittal," the capo had promised.

"But what about my dogs? Who will take care of them?"

Don Silvio had slapped him lightly on the cheek. It was an affectionate slap. After all, had not Vinnie Cerebrini killed over thirty men for him? "That is the job of your wife. You should have married a long time ago. Like I been tellin' you,"

"I'll get around to it. You know I've been busy. What with whacking this guy and clipping that one, I don't got time for broads like I should."

Another unfortunate remark, but that was life. "Bring them here. If they are your dogs, I am sure they are good dogs." And Don Silvio leaned across the kitchen table conspiratorially. "They do not piddle on the rug, do they?"