Warren Murphy: Killing Time

"So I've noticed," Remo said. "Go back to calling me an imperialist warmonger. You look better that way."

"How dare you talk to me like that, you seedy, re­volting, shit-brained clod."

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"Terrific," Remo snapped off a few more. " 'Seedy's' good. Works almost like 'cheese." "

"You don't know your pecker from a stick," Cheeta sneered.

Remo snapped. "Sure I do," he said pleasantly. "I'd touch you with a stick."

Cheeta emitted a high jungle yell. " "You sick, slimy, nauseating, vermin-infested, flee-bitten, loose-boweled, crap-eating jock-honkey-nigger-kike jerk-off!" she screamed.

Remo finished off the roll. "That did it. You're a nat­ural, Cheeta. You ought to pose as a centerfold. Sol­dier of Fortune might be interested. They like pictures of tanks. Be seeing you."

She strained on the ropes behind her back, jumping so hard that the chair thumped off the gouund. "Hey, you can't leave. Get me out of this thing. Untie me."

"I'll call your keeper," Remo said.

Chiun hung the picture in a place of honor directly in front of the window in the motel room. It blocked out most of the light.

"This way, when we seek the sun, we will find it be­hind Cheeta's bright visage," he said.

"Great," Remo said, squinting up from the book h© was straining to read. "She looks better in the dark, anyway."

He went back to his book. It was a history of the film goddesses of the thirties. The pages on Posie Pon-selle were worn and shiny. For the thousandth time, Remo stared at the old photograph of her, looking ex­actly as she did the last time he saw her.

"You have pleased me, my son."

"I'm glad, Little Father," he said quietly. Nothing was going to bring Posie back now. Maybe that was

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for the best. She herself had told him that there were worse things than growing old, and she probably knew what they were. But he missed her. He couldn't help that.

"You have gladdened my heart almost to perfec­tion."

"It's okay, Chiun."

"I say almost, because there is but one other thing, a small thing, a nothing, that would make my happi­ness complete."

Remo didn't answer.

"I said there is but one other thing," Chiun said, louder.

Remo looked up, disgusted.

"Of course, if you have no thought of an old man's final happiness in the twilight of his years . . ." He trailed off. Remo went back to his reading. "It would have been such a small request," Chiun went on. "A mere trifle. The humblest of insignificances-"

"Oh, he!!," Remo said, slamming the book. "What is it?"

The old man's face beamed with fresh anticipation, "I was just thinking, Remo," he said, bouncing as he spoke, "how Sovely it would be to have a picture of both of us. Of the lovely Cheeta Ching and the Master of Sinanju together. Perhaps with her small delicate hand clasping mine as she gazes up to me in adora­tion. Something simple. With the romantic shores of Sinanju in the background. Remo . . . Remo? Where are you going?"

"Ever hear of the Foreign Legion?" Remo asked at the door.

"No."

"Good."