Warren Murphy: Dangerous Games

Remo sighed. Arguing with Chiun was a waste of time. It would be easier to put the damn gorilla back where he belonged.

"He's getting closer," Smith said. "I'd appreciate it if you fellows would agree on who was going to do what, or else let us get out of here."

"Easy does it, Smitty. Animals sense when you get nervous and it makes them mean," said Remo.

"I'll take your word for it," Smith said. "Let's go."

"The demonstration is set," Chiun said imperiously. He folded his arms and looked inscrutable.

"I'll put hun back," Remo said.

"And do not hurt him," Chiun said. "He might be a relative."

The gorilla was almost on them now, so Remo took a large step forward, ducked inside the beast's swinging arms, put a hand on the massive hard chest and pushed.

Brian staggered back several feet, a look of cartoon surprise on his face. He did not understand what had happened and the noises this creature was making at hun.

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Smith didn't understand Remo's noises either.

"I am Everyman," Remo announced to Brian, "and I order you back to your cage."

"What is he talking about?" Smith asked Chiun.

"Merely talking to confuse the beast," Chiun answered, but he was frowning. Remo was playing games again. It was getting to be a habit and it could be a dangerous habit. Even gorillas could be dangerous if one's mind were not on one's work.

"Back," Remo ordered again but Brian lurched forward. Remo again ducked under the groping arms of the beast. He clamped bis hand on the back of the gorilla's left thigh, found the muscle he wanted and squeezed. Brian fell to his knee, his left leg unable to hold his weight.

Using his left arm in place of a leg, Brian came forward again, grabbing for Remo with his right hand. Remo put up his own right hand and he and the gorilla clasped hands, making one fist of the two. Brian's hand dwarfed Remo's, but as Smith watched in disbelief, Remo began to exert pressure and the gorilla leaned backwards and finally dropped to both his knees.

"I don't believe this," Smith said. He looked anxiously around to see if anyone else was watching, but he saw no one. He was afraid that any moment now there would be news photographers and television crews and questions and interviews and the end of CURE, because that would be the result of going public.

"You must believe what you see," Chiun told Smith. But Smith did not hear him. He watched in wonder instead, as Remo picked up the 500-pound ape, tossed him over his shoulder, and carried him back to bis cage. Remo gently lowered Brian to the floor of the cage, patted him on the head like a tame dog, and walked out. He left the door open behind

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Mm but that did not matter. Brian had no more inclination to play.

"Satisfied?" Remo asked.

"Eminently," Smith said. "Let's go."

"I am not," said Chiun. "You took too long. You did not have to humiliate the poor beast." Chiun turned to Smith and bowed. "I apologize to you, O Emperor, for the sloppiness of the demonstration. He will improve."

"It's all right," Smith said.

"Are you sure?" Remo asked Smith. "You know, we could let a tiger out or something and try again."

"Let us just leave," Smith said.

"All right. Our car's just over there in that lot," Remo said.

"No car for you, meat-eater," Chiun said. "You are in training. You will run behind the vehicle."

As they strolled away, four guards with tranquhzer rifles ran up and stopped. Among them was the guard Remo had talked to earlier.

"Well, where's Brian?" one asked.

"He was here," the guard said. "I swear. Hey, Mac. You see the gorilla?"

"Sure," Remo said. "He's in his cage. But you better fix that door. He might get out."

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CHAPTER FIVE

The seven runners on the luxurious, multimillion-dollar running track at Emerson College in Boston were wearing, among them, a total of $840 in running shoes with special air-lite paper-thin uppers and all-surface, all-weather Tiger-Paw spikes for better traction, and $700 of running clothes, including skintight shorts and tank-top shirts, aerodynamically designed to cut wind resistance in an amount that the manufacturer said might improve performance by as much as one tenth of one percent. In a mile race of 230 seconds, this could mean a faster speed of 23 hundredths of a second, and that might be the difference between so-so and a world's record.

And then there was Remo Black, the newcomer. Nobody had heard much about him, except that he had won pre-Olympic elimination races in Seattle, Portland, and Denver. He walked onto the track last. He was wearing black chinos and soft hand-made black Italian loafers. He wore a black cotton t-shirt with printing on the front. The shirt's legend read: I AM A VIRGIN.

Under that in much smaller type, the legend continued: "This is a very old t-shirt."

He had his wallet in his left rear pocket.

"He's got his wallet in his back pocket," said Vincent Josephs. "You see that? He's got his wallet in his back pocket. And the sucker's wearing chinos.

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And loafers. This frigging hoople's wearing loafers. Is that what you brought me up here to see?"

He turned in his seat in the stands and looked through his Gucci semi-tint glasses with the wraparound frames and the easy-ride earpiece at the man sitting next to him. Wally Mills was a track coach who had had three athletes competing in the preliminary Olympic trials in the 800-meter event. But as he had told his wife, "They couldn't beat me," and they had fallen by the wayside early. But he had seen Remo Black run twice, and so he had gotten hold of Vincent Josephs.

"That's part of his charm," Mills told Josephs. "I'm telling you this guy is not to be believed. Last week, in Portland, he ran away from the field like they was standing still. A new world's record, he coulda had. He was running like in a daze, and then, I swear to God to you, he slowed down and let them catch up and he just trotted along and finished second."

"So what? He ran out of gas," Josephs said.

Mills shook his head. "Like in horse racing, Mr. Josephs, he was full of run at the end. I had the glasses on him and he deliberately let everybody catch up. It was like he suddenly realized he was going to set a record and he didn't want to."

"All right," Josephs said. "So he's fast. That makes him a fast kook. Look at that t-shirt. That's like wearing a sail. And the guy's old. What's he doing with these kids? He's gonna have a frigging coronary. I'm just glad we ain't got him signed up by now."

"I swear to you, Mr. Josephs, this guy isn't even out of breath at the end of a race. He doesn't even walk around to catch his breath. These twenty-year-olds are all huffing and puffing and gasping and choking and he goes over and sits down and he looks

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like he just woke up from a nap. So that's why I called you. I figured with you representing great athletes and all, this Remo Black might be a real dark horse for you."

Josephs was not convinced. "I'll watch him," he said. "Who's the chink?"

Mills said, "Korean, I think."

"What I said, a chink. Who's he?"

"He's this Remo's trainer or something. He's always around."

"A chink." Josephs shook his head in exasperation. "Mills, why are you wasting my frigging time on these people?"

"Watch him run," Mills said.

"I guess I got no choice," Josephs said, folding his arms and turning away. "But I think you ought to know that I got seven basketball contracts to negotiate and I'm working on a big deal for that dippy little gymnastic kid that everybody goes la-de-da about."

"But you ain't got a world champion," Mills said. "This guy could be one."

"Yeah, sure," Josephs said, but he decided to pay attention because Wally Mills was a good track coach and the truth was that the seven basketball players he represented, working together for a week, couldn't drop a basketball into an open manhole, and his deal for the little girl gymnast required him to figure out a way to make a pre-menstrual twelve-year-old look believable endorsing a special line of super-safe sanitary napkins, and the little broad was so dumb, it'd be another twelve years before she figured out what sanitary napkins were for.