Warren Murphy: Sue Me

Sayak heard her noise, but saw her predicament. This was a girl in love, for otherwise she would have accepted the favors of the emperor and grown rich and comfortable, a noble purpose for a courtesan, for in fact that would mean that her family and village would be secure from want. Sayak could appreciate this, for he provided the same security for his poor village, Sinanju, on the rocky slopes of the West Korea Bay.

Seeing Hareen lying on the multicolored pillows with soft silk cascading about her and her lover in her arms, Sayak saw she had made an improper move for a courtesan. For she did not seek the crown, but someone else, and of course it was he who controlled the beautiful Hareen, the captain of her guard, the man who held her now.

And with the inimitable grace of Sinanju, Sayak did move upon the multicolored pillows and snuff out the life of the captain, even while the beautiful Hareen screamed of murder, screamed of treachery, screamed she would see Sayak's death, no matter what the cost.

Using the force of her anger, Sayak let the anger work around her body in traditional ways, as he prepared to move her from the tension of anger quite naturally into relaxation with common touching and breathing techniques of the first level of Sinanju, and then up to sexual tension. At the height of her transformed energy, he took her, bringing her to an orgasm of peak intensity.

Since it was her body and not her mind that craved the captain, it was her body now that told her she loved Sayak.

And indeed, this beautiful girl who was no more than sixteen offered some attraction for Sayak, for even though Masters of Sinanju are at one with their bodies, they are still men. And she was a most beautiful being, rounded perfectly in all the places that were to be rounded, and thinned in all the places that were to be thinned, and smelling too of lilacs and roses and all the fragrances of a thousand gardens on her perfect skin.

But Sayak was Sinanju, and abiding by his responsibility he told her that first she must order the death of the emperor, order it from Sinanju, as a service. She did this readily, as she had gone along with the now dead captain.

That night Sayak sent the Emperor Mujjipur from a peaceful sleep into the deepest sleep for which there was no morning.

And by so doing, Sayak stilled the one voice that would accuse Sinanju of failure, though it had been the emperor's failure all along. But one could not be too careful about evil words from clients. Mujjipur had no right to defame Sinanju for his own faults, and thus justice was done, a necessary justice because Sayak knew that sooner or later even he would have succumbed.

Now Hareen did not want her new lover Sayak to leave, offering him instead the throne at Rhatpur. But Sayak said, and it should be remembered by every Master unto the ages when all men leave the earth and assassins are no longer needed, "Beautiful Hareen, you offer me the throne at Rhatpur. But look now, a thousand years ago there was a kingdom here which you do not remember, and a thousand years from now, there will be a kingdom here which will not remember the throne of Rhatpur. But a thousand years ago, there was Sinanju, and a thousand years hence there will be Sinanju."

And the lesson from this tale of Master Sayak was that an emperor who foolishly does not allow his assassin to do his job has not hired him. But he who will let an assassin be what he should be, that one is the rightful employer.

Thus it was written in the histories of Sinanju that there was a time when a Master owed to Sinanju the correct move in seeking the right employer for the awesome talents and power of Sinanju.

Millennia later, in a motel shower alongside Lake Booree in Colorado, getting the mud out of his body pores, Remo remembered the tale of Master Sayak and knew Chiun was right. He had almost died in saving that dam. He finished washing, dried off, and put on his slacks and T-shirt. He could travel with all his clothes in a briefcase. He had never gotten into wearing kimonos as Chiun had tried to have him do. He didn't like them, and Chiun attributed this bad habit to early training which could not be broken. Remo paused before the meditating Chiun.

"I could never get myself to work for Palmer, Rizzuto " he said.

And Chiun knew Remo had been thinking properly. "We can then leave. Insane Smith would never say we had failed; he is obsessed with keeping our glory hidden. Why would he not do the same for our shame?"

"I guess you're right, little father," said Remo. "I guess it has come to that."

In Chicago, Debbie Pattie had made a fantastic discovery. She had launched her team of accountants into the books of the Save concert. Out of the twenty-five million dollars raised, her accountants tracked down exactly what was reaching Gupta, India. It was sent in an express package two feet wide and one foot tall. Exactly thirty-five dollars' worth of Band-Aids.

Enraged in large part because the man she wanted, Remo, had been right, and more important, didn't want to go to bed with her, Debbie immediately set out to raise a cry in the land about the fraud.

She contacted the leading rock singers of the Save concert. One of them, who yelled about being an American and wore a bandanna around his head, showing lots of sweat and muscle, was Barry Horowitz, sometimes called The Man.

He was strong. He was radical. He was concerned. "Barry, this is Debbie Pattie. I found out something horrible. Do you know that for all our work we are only sending thirty-five dollars in Band-Aids to Gupta?"

"That's not my job, sweetie. I'm the strong outraged American. I scream my guts out. That's my job."

"But if you'd been to Gupta, you'd have seen the suffering. We have to do more."

"Hey, little shitheel, I sang my lungs out. You can't get no more out of this man."

"But the people aren't getting anything."

"I'm the voice of rage and justice, not the food-delivery man, baby. Get your act together. I got mine. "

Some others thought it was terrible, but they had bookings they had to fill. And still others had attended the concert because everyone seemed to be doing it and they had never even known what the benefit was for.

Debbie Pattie was alone and she couldn't even reach Remo. But she knew she had made it through a hard world right to the top, and if she could nail the thieves herself, she thought, then Remo, the one man she wanted and couldn't have, would have to come and admit she was someone special.

The money, as it turned out, went to several places. Everyone made money. The auditorium management hoarded what little it had to pay damages to families of the injured and dead rock stars, the unions received special bonuses, and one dandy little tidbit was that almost half of everything collected went to Gadgets Unlimited, the company that provided the wiring and lighting for the stage. The accountants told her the people who arranged this were brilliant and knew just how benefits worked, even understanding that money could be taken out as security for future bills.

"If you hadn't alerted us we never would have found this rascal. This is the best job of numbers manipulation we have ever seen."

Gadgets Unlimited was in Grand Island, Nebraska. Debbie wouldn't go to Grand Island to die, but she would bring Grand Island to her. She phoned the company and got a machine. But this was the strangest answering machine she had ever heard.

"Yes, I am an answering machine but I can answer your questions, hold conversations, and even give you three minutes of appropriate sympathy if that is called for."

"I want to speak to the employee who handled the work on the Save benefit."

"A tragedy, yes. But the Save concert also contributed to furthering the interests of stage delights."

"There are a few million dollars' worth of bills here," said Debbie. She looked at the printout on the marble tabletop in her hotel suite. There were electron microscopes, mass spectrometers, and enough scientific gadgets to outfit a space capsule.