Warren Murphy: Dangerous Games

Her dismount was perfect. So was her score. All tens. Just one more day to go for the gold.

As she came off the floor, she was surrounded by

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reporters who wanted to talk to her. Remo saw someone in the crowd pushing the reporters back, making room for her. His stomach fell when he saw who it was. Vincent Josephs, the sports agent, who had wanted to sign up Remo and manage his career.

Remo saw Josephs walk toward the arena exit and the press tent. Josie Littlefeather followed him, ignoring the questions of the trailing pack of reporters.

Remo tagged along. He wanted to hear her tell her story about how winning the gold medal would bring pride to her tribe of Blackhand Indians.

When Remo entered the tent, he almost bumped into Vincent Josephs, who was checking to make sure that all the major press outlets were represented.

"Stand in the back, kid, and don't talk," he told Remo. "This tent is for winners."

"She hasn't won yet," Remo said.

"It's a chip shot," Vincent Josephs said. "Tomorrow is a breeze."

Josie saw Remo standing in the back of the tent and when his eyes met hers, she quickly looked away. With Josephs at her side, she began to field the reporters' questions. She remembered all the answers she had been taught.

Her uniform, made by Lady Bountiful, fit perfectly and gave her the freedom for her championship performance.

She owed her conditioning to krisp-and-Lite breakfast cereal, which she had eaten every day since childhood.

She protected herself against slipping by using Shur-Fire Rosin, the stickum of champions, and when she wasn't competing, she liked to rest around the wigwam in her perfectly comfortable, wanning Hotsy Totsy Slippers by Benningham Mills, made of the new wonder knit, More-on.

She never mentioned Remo, which did not hurt his

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feelings. She never once mentioned winning the medal for the Blackhand Indians, which did hurt Re-mo's feelings.

Remo waited by the entrance to the tent so Josie would have to pass by him when they left. Reporters wanted her to come outside, and do a couple of handstands and cartwheels for publicity photos. She would be America's first woman gymnast gold medalist in history. The only way she could lose tomor-roe would be to fall off the bar and stay off.

He blocked Josie's way as she came toward the tent entrance.

"Congratulations," he said. "I'm sure all the folks back home on the reservation will be proud of you, even if you did forget to mention them."

She tossed her long hair back over her shoulder and stared at him, as if he were an autograph hound bothering her in a restroom.

"You were right," she said, "when you said that if I could work my way off the reservation, so could they. I have an opportunity now with Mr. Josephs to make a name for myself."

"And a lot of money," Remo said.

"Right. And a lot of money and there's no law against it. Maybe I'll see you around, Remo. Now, the photographers are waiting."

Vincent Josephs went ahead of her and as she passed Remo he reached out and delicately touched her lower back.

She turned. "What was that for?" she asked. She felt strangely uncomfortable. She knew he'd only touched her lightly, but for some reason she could still feel it and it seemed to be spreading through her body.

"You'll never forget that touch, Josie," said Remo. "It's very special. Any time you try to perform any kind of gymnastic move, you'll remember that touch. When you mount a balance beam, you'll think of it,

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and when you do, you'll think about that beam and you're going to know it's not two feet wide with a red stripe down the middle. You're going to remember that it's only a piece of wood, four inches wide, and every time you try to climb on it, you're going to fall off, right on your lovely ass."

She frowned at him. "You're crazy," she told him, not wanting to believe it.

Suddenly, Vincent Josephs was back.

"Hey, honey, come on outside. They want some pictures, you know, handstands and flips and stuff. C'mon, let's go tantalize them . . . champ."

She hesitated.

"Go ahead, Josie," said Remo, with a cold smile. "Go do a few flips and handstands for them. And for me and the folks back home."

Josephs grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the tent and Remo walked out behind them, then turned and walked away.

Behind him, he heard the photographers laugh. He turned to watch.

Josie tried a handstand and lost her balance and fell over.

The photographers chuckled and Vincent Josephs laughed it off.

"Just nerves, fellas. Come on, Josie, put on a show for the boys."

She looked up and her eyes met Remo's. She looked apprehensive.

She tried to do a cartwheel, a children's exercise in a schoolyard, and fell heavily to the ground.

The photographers laughed and Remo walked away, back toward the room which he and Chiun would soon leave for a plane to London.

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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

In the fifth floor room at London's Dorchester Arms, Smith was trying to talk, but Chiun sat silently in the middle of the floor, arms folded, eyes staring into eternity, and Remo was watching the women's gymnastic competition on television.

"So it has ended reasonably well," Smith said. "The explosives were all removed, and the Russians have decided not to protest against our obviously having sneaked some agents into the games without their permission."

He got the feeling he was talking into an empty cave. Chiun did not move, not even so much as flickering an eyelid. Remo remained glued to the television set. An announcer, presumably chosen for hyperthyroidism, was shouting: "Now, here's the surprise star of the games. Josie Littlefeather. This little red woman hasn't been anything but perfect since she first set foot on the balance beam here in Moscow. All tens."

And homing in on his voice was the voice of a young woman commentator who was herself an ex-athlete but tended to forget it in the flood of gee-whizzes and wows which made up her broadcasting vocabulary. "That's right, folks," she said, "and, gee whiz, all Josie's got to do right now is score an eight . and she's got this balance beam competition all locked up."

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"Scoring an eight shouldn't be hard, should it?" said the male commentator.

"All you've got to do is stay on the beam and you'll get an eight," the girl said.

"Yeah?" snarled Remo to the television set. "Watch this."

Smith shook his head. Both Remo and Chum had been acting strangely since they returned last night from Moscow. He leaned over on his couch seat to look over Remo's shoulder at the television set. He saw an Indian girl with her hair tied up in a bun apply rosin to her hands, then move to the balance beam, put her hands on it, and lift herself up to the narrow plank of wood. Then her hands seemed to slip, and she fell to the matting surrounding the beam.

"Way to go, Josie," shouted Remo.

The girl leaped back up to the beam, but her foot slipped and she landed heavily on her backside. She grabbed the beam desperately to stop herself from falling off.

"Swell, sweetheart," Remo said.

Finally she raised herself to a standing position on the beam. She took a step forward, planted her right foot, tried to do a forward walkover, but her left foot slipped and she fell off the beam onto the mat.

"She's blowing it," the young woman commentator said. "Wow, folks, Josie had it all in her hands and she's blowing it."

"I guess she's blowing it," said the male announcer, not to be outdone in technical analysis.

Josie Littlefeather got up quickly and made one last attempt to mount the beam, but as her feet hit it, they slid out from under her and she fell to her backside, then rolled off onto the mat, then got up and ran off the floor, out of the arena. She was rubbing her back.