Warren Murphy: The Eleventh Hour

"This is America," said Remo's companion. He did not wear black. He wore smoke-gray silk, trimmed with pink, in the form of a kimono. "Barbarism is its natural state. But tonight is very pleasing. I cannot put my finger on it, but it is very pleasant here-for a dirty American city."

"We're the only ones out in the entire freaking city," Remo said.

"We are the only ones who count," said Chiun, the latest in the unbroken line of Masters of Sinanju. His shiny head, adorned with white wisps of hair above each ear, came only to Remo's shoulder. His parchment face was a happy web of wrinkles, dominated by bright eyes. They were a clear hazel, and they made him seem younger than his eighty-plus years.

"This isn't the way it should be, Little Father," Remo said, stopping at a street corner. No traffic moved. There were no pedestrians. Every storefront was dark. In some of them, the dim figures of storeowners waited and watched. Remo saw a shotgun in one man's arm.

"When I was a kid, Halloween wasn't like this."

"No?" squeaked Chiun. "What was it like?"

"Kids walked the streets safely. We went house to house in our trick-or-treat outfits, and every porch was lit. We didn't have to be kept indoors because parents were afraid of razor blades in apples or Valium hidden in chocolate bars. And we didn't set fire to buildings. At worst, we threw rotten eggs at people's windows if they were too stingy to give us candy."

"You were a child extortionist, Remo. Why am I not surprised?"

"Halloween is an American tradition."

"I like silence better," said Chiun. "Let us walk down this street next."

"Why this one?" asked Remo.

"Humor me."

Remo heard the clinking of metal against stone before he had taken three steps.

"This may be them," Remo whispered. "The arsonists Smith sent us to find."

"Were you an arsonist as a child too?"

"No, I was an orphan."

"A fine thing to say to one who has been as your father."

"Cut it out, Chiun. I don't want to spook these guys."

"I will wait here, then. Alone. Like an orphan."

Remo slid up against the brick wall of a tenement building in downtown Detroit. The wall was smudged black from a fire years before. The dead smell of burned things still clung to the building. The sounds were coming from an alley around the corner. There were three figures kneeling back inside the alley, only dim outlines in the colorless moonlight. To Remo, whose eyes had been trained to gather up and intensify any available light, the scene was as bright as if he had been watching a black-and-white television picture. He watched silently.

"You lose," said one of the youths in a small voice. Remo caught the flash and clink of a penny bouncing off brick.

"What are you guys doing?" Remo asked suddenly, using the same authoritative voice that, in the days when he was a beat patrolman, was as important as his sidearm.

The three teenagers jumped as one.

"Pitching pennies," one of them said. "What's it to you?"

"I didn't know anyone pitched pennies anymore," Remo said in surprise.

"We do."

"I can see that," Remo said. The sight took him back to his childhood, in Newark, New Jersey. He had pitched pennies all over Newark, even though Sister Mary Margaret of Saint Theresa's Orphanage warned him that it was a sinful waste of time as well as pennies which could help feed the poor.

"Don't you guys know there's a curfew on tonight? You could all go to jail."

"Don't make me laugh," the oldest of the three said. "We're underage. They don't send kids to jail." He had black hair cut in a punk chop and wore a studded collar around his pale throat. The legend "CTHULHU RULES" was written with red Magic Marker across the front of his dungaree jacket. Remo figured Cthulhu must be a new punk rock group.

"Okay. Let me show you how we used to pitch pennies in Newark."

Remo dug into his pocket, producing a few brown coins.

"The object of the game is to pitch the pennies so they bounce as close to the wall as possible, right?" Remo said.

"I usually win," the first youth boasted.

"Watch this." Remo set himself and let fly.

There came a sound like an ice pick being driven through concrete. In the dim light, a black hole appeared in the brick wall.

"Rad!" the three teenagers said at once.

"Too hard," complained Remo. "I'd better lighten up." He fired again.

This time the penny bounced off the wall and knocked over a garbage can. A gray rat ran for its life.

"Hey! Show us how to do that."

"Are you kidding?" Remo said. "I'm not doing it right. Let me try again."

This time Remo's coin hit the wall without a sound, hung flat against the brick for an impossible moment, and slid down to land on its edge, Lincoln's profile flush to the wall.

"Wow!" cried the young man, his face lighting up. "You'll never do that again in a million years!"

"Watch this," said Remo. And he pitched three pennies so fast that they seemed to strike the wall at once. All three landed on their edges, so there were four shiny new pennies in a row.

"Your turn," Remo offered, grinning.

"No way," said the boy. "You win. Teach us to do that."

"If I did that, you'd all be equal, and then what good would playing each other be?"

"We'd play against other kids."

"I'll think about it. But why don't you kids go home?"

"Come on, man. It's Halloween."

"Not in Detroit," Remo said sadly.

"Who are you, mister?"

"The Ghost of Halloween Past," said Remo. "Now shoo."

Reluctantly, the trio shooed.

"Just kids," Remo said as he rejoined Chiun, who stood with his long-nailed hands tucked into his folded sleeves.

Chiun snorted. "Juvenile gamblers."

"You never pitched pennies as a kid," Remo said. "You wouldn't understand. They sorta remind me of myself when I was young."

"In that we are in agreement," said Chiun, pointing. Remo followed Chiun's finger with his eyes.

The three penny-pitchers were setting fire to a trashcan in front of a grocery store. They tipped the flaming contents into the doorway.

"Perhaps you could lend them some matches," offered Chiun.

"Damn," said Remo, taking off after them.

The kids scattered when they saw Remo coming. The wooden door of the grocery started to catch. Remo stopped, for a moment uncertain whether to continue to give chase or to stop the fire. He couldn't afford not to do both.

Remo dug out a penny from his pocket, and sighting on the back of the one boy's exploding hairdo, gave it a flip. Remo didn't stop to look at the result. He scooped up the burning trash barrel in both hands, held it lightly but firmly in the pads of his hands so the heat did not burn his fingers. He could do that. It was second nature by now.

Remo capped the burning rubbish with the trashcan, just as an oil-well fire is capped. When he pulled the can away, the pile smoldered, but that was all. He beat the flames from the door with his foot.

There was still a bit of fire at the bottom of the can. Remo squeezed the barrel. It bent in the middle like an aluminum beer can, even though it was corrugated steel, and gave out a screech like a trash compactor. Remo kept squeezing and shaping. The trashcan became a ball. Remo sent it rolling with a kick.

Casually, with the astonished faces of several store proprietors staring at him from behind grimy and steel-gated storefronts, Remo walked up to the youth's prone form.

There was a lump on the back of his head. His face was mushed against the pavement. A bent penny lay beside his cheek.

Remo picked the kid up by the collar of his jacket and slapped his face once, hard. The kid made a Wfaahh sound and asked what happened in a druggy voice.

"There's a new sheriff in town," Remo growled. "I'm it."

"What did you hit me with, a crowbar?"