Warren Murphy - The Last Alchemist

"Hello, Mrs. Goldenson?" said Chiun. "You don't know me and I am not important. I'm calling about your son ... No. He is not in any trouble or danger. No, I don't know what kind of women he is going with.... I am calling about something else. I can tell that such a fine boy has to have been raised with care. I understand that because I have had troubles with raising a boy myself."

Chiun looked at Remo. Remo was now rooting for the young criminal lawyer. Remo was also rooting for the woman to hang up on Chiun. Remo was happy to root for anyone but Chiun.

"Oh, yes.... You try and try, but when your loved one ignores your needs to fend ... Oh, yes ... The entire family treasure for generations back . . . missing and I only asked for a little help in looking ... but that's my problem, Mrs. Goldenson. . . . Your son can still be helped because I know you have taught him right . . . a nothing ... a little thing ... successful lawyer, Mrs. Goldenson, and such a success should not be wearing ... I hate to say it ... I won't say it ... you don't want to hear it ... sneakers."

Chiun was quiet a moment, then handed the telephone to Goldenson. Goldenson adjusted the vest of his three-piece suit and cleared his throat.

"Yes, Mother," he said. "He's not a nice man, Mother. I am on an important case and he is on the other side. They do things, anything to distract ... Mother ... he is not a nice man ... you don't know him ... you haven't seen him ... As a matter of fact, I happen to be wearing what many California businessmen wear for the comfort of their feet.... Do you know who wears jogging shoes in courtrooms? Do you know the famous . . ."

Goldenson clenched the receiver as his face flushed. He broke eye contact with everyone in the room. Finally he handed the receiver to Chiun.

"She wants to talk to you."

"Yes, Mrs. Goldenson. I hope I didn't cause you any worry. You're welcome, and if I ever get to Boynton Beach, Florida, I will be happy to see you. No, there is nothing I can do with my son. The treasure is lost but he thinks someone else's useless metal is worth more than the family history. What can you do?"

And then Chiun offered the phone to Goldenson, asking if he had anything more to say. Goldenson shook his head. He opened his briefcase and quickly wrote out a check. He handed it to Brewster.

"This is your retainer."

"Where are you going?"

"Shoes. I am going to get a pair of dark leather shoes. Thank you, Mr. Chiun," said Goldenson bitterly.

"What about me?" asked Brewster. "Who's going to look after me?"

"Try your former employer, Ms. Bonner."

"A good boy," Chiun said to Goldenson as he left. With Goldenson on the way it took Bonner exactly seven minutes to have Brewster sweating and making up alibis. Finally she warned him that anything further he said might be used against him and warned him not to leave La Jolla. An arrest warrant would be sworn out that very afternoon.

Before they left, Remo glanced back out at that strange reflection on the water. It hadn't moved. Other boat windows bobbed and pitched with the gentle swells of the Pacific. That reflection did not. And then Remo knew why.

On board the boat, beneath the deck, Francisco Braun checked the large gyroscope. The heavy spinning wheel kept his electron telescope balanced as steady as in a laboratory. The boat could pitch and rock, but the telescope set on that gyroscope would never move from the level created by the force of the motion.

This telescope could expand a thumbprint at two miles. It could also aim a small cannon.

Francisco Braun had seen all he had to see back in McKeesport. He had seen enough to know what would not work. A mere few hundred yards was not enough distance between Braun and his prey, against the white man and the ancient Oriental. The speed and reflexes of those two men were dangerous at that range. But launching a shell into a shorefront condominium from several miles out, where a boat was just a dot on the horizon, was like launching a shell from nowhere. If they couldn't see it, they couldn't avoid it. The key was staying beyond their awareness. And that meant distance.

He focused on the condominium until he could see the weathering on the wood, and then he lifted his sights to the second-floor balcony and the apartment of James Brewster. Consuelo and the two men should be there now.

Braun focused on the railing on the second floor. A hand rested on the railing. It was a man's hand. He had thick wrists, just like the white at McKeesport. Behind him, a kimono caught a breeze. The kimono was inside the apartment. That would be the Oriental.

Braun raised the level of the telescope. He picked up the buttons of the white man's shirt. He picked up the Adam's apple. The chin. The mouth. It was smiling at him. So were the eyes.

Francisco Braun did not fire his gun.

Chapter 7

Consuelo Bonner got a policeman, who got a judge, who gave an arrest warrant, and then she, Remo, Chiun, the policeman, and the warrant went to the condominium of James Brewster to read him his rights and place him under arrest. All according to the law.

"This is justice," said Consuelo. The policeman rang the buzzer.

The camera stared its one thick glass eye down at the foursome.

"Justice," said Chiun to Remo in Korean, "is when an assassin is paid for his work. Justice is when the treasures of those labors, stolen while the assassin is gone, are recovered. That is justice. This is running around with papers."

"I thought you said the real treasures of Sinanju were in the histories of the Masters, that it was not the gold or the jewels or other tributes but who we are and how we became that way that make us rich," said Remo in the same language.

"Will you two stop talking, please? This is an official act of the La Jolla Police Department," said the patrolman.

"No crueler blow than to have one's own words twisted and then thrown back."

"How are they twisted?"

"Badly twisted," said Chiun.

"How?"

"It will be recorded in the histories that I, Chiun, was Master when the treasures were lost. But it will be recorded most that you, Remo, did not aid in their recovery. Instead, you served your own kind during a moment of crisis in the House of Sinanju."

"The world was ready to go. If there is no world, if everything is in some form of nuclear winter, what would the treasure of Sinanju be worth then?"

"Even more," said Chiun.

"To whom?" said Remo.

"I don't argue with fools," said Chiun.

The policeman, having determined he could neither stop the two from talking in that strange language nor get an answer from the buzzer, did according to the rights of his warrant proceed to enter said domicile of one James Brewster.

But the door was locked. He was going to send for assistance in breaking into said domicile when Remo grabbed the handle and turned. There was a snap of breaking metal. The door opened.

"Cheap door," said the La Jolla patrolman. He saw a piece of the cracked lock on the other side of the door. He bent to pick it up and then quickly let go. It was hot. "Whadya do to the door? What happened here?"

"I let you in," said Remo. "But it won't do any good. He's not there."

"Don't be so negative. If there is one thing I have learned in criminology it is that a negative mind produces nothing. You have to think positive."

"If I thought it was snowing outside, it still wouldn't be snowing," said Remo. "He's not there."

"How do you know he's not there? How can you say he's not there?" ranted Consuelo Bonner. "How do you know until you go up and see? I am a woman but I am just as competent as any man. Don't go fouling my case on me."

"He's not there. I don't know how I know but he's not there. Believe me, he's not there. Okay?" said Remo. And he didn't know how he knew. He knew that others couldn't sense when someone was in a room behind a door. But he could no more tell her how he knew than he could tell her how light worked.