Warren Murphy - Missing Link

The telephone rang. Remo got up to answer it.

Chiun restrained him with a hand on Remo's shoulder.

"You are not just saying this?"

"Think about it," Remo said. "On television, all those athletes are wearing shorts." He shrugged. "Sorry, Chiun, looks like you've been scratched."

Chiun's face twisted in anger. The telephone rang again. "That is a supid rule you have," Chiun snarled. He moved from the room like a puff of smoke through an exhaust fan. The door shivered on its hinges as it slammed behind him.

Remo picked up the telephone. It was Smith.

"I've found PLOTZ," Smith said.

"Good," Remo said. "Where?"

"You're not going to believe this/ Smith said.

"Believe what?"

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"The}' just bought a loft building in Hoboken, New Jersey."

"How'd you find that out?" Remo asked. "They bought it under their own name," Smith said. "It turned up on the records in the county registrar's office. Building purchased by the Pan-Latin Organization against Terrorist Zionism."

"That's not exactly being secretive, is it?" Remo asked.

"They've also applied for a federal tax exemption as a non-profit corporation," Smith said. "You're right. I don't believe it," Remo said. "And try this. They've sent out a press release to announce their formation and their schedule of activities for the next month."

"Wait a minute now," Remo said. "A terrorist group that kidnaps the president's brother-in-law is going public?"

"That's what it looks like," Smith said. "They ain't wrapped too tight." Chiun came back into the room as Smith said, "I have all the information here. Write it down.' Remo looked on the end table for a pencil. "Hold on, Smitty," he said. He looked over at Chiun who stood near the desk of the hotel room. "Chiun," he said.

The old man slowly turned his head to look at Remo.

"Give me a pen out of that drawer, will you?" Chiun folded his arms. "C'mon, Chiun, stop fooling around." "Look for your own pen." "I need to write down a number." "What is the number?" Chiun asked.

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"Smitty, what's the address?"

"One-eleven Water Street, Hoboken," Smith said.

"One-eleven Water Street, Hoboken," Remo told Chiun.

"Now you no longer have any need to write it down," Chiun said. "You will remember it forever."

"No, I won't. I'll forget it."

"You will remember it. I guarantee it," Chiun said.

"All right," Remo growled. "I'll fix you. One-eleven Water Street and I'm going to forget it as soon as I hang up."

"Remo," Smith's voice crackled into the phone.

"Yeah, Smitty."

"What are you doing?"

"Never mind. What's the name of the person with this organization?"

"Freddy Zentz," Smith said.

"Chiun," Remo called. "Remember Freddy Zentz."

"Never," Chiun said. "Remember it yourself." Remo saw Chiun's hands busy in the drawer of the desk.

"I've got it, Smitty," Remo said. "Freddy Zentz, PLOTZ, One-eleven Water Street, Hoboken."

"Get right on it," Smith said. "Goodbye."

Remo hung up and went to the desk drawer. Chiun moved aside to make room for him.

Inside the drawer, Remo found the hotel's complimentary pen. It had been snapped in half.

"You're really not a nice person, Chiun," said Remo.

"When I win the Olympic gold, then I will have

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time to be a nice person," Chiun said. "If people stop putting roadblocks in my way."

"Aaaaah," Remo snarled. "Try this. Freddy Zentz, PLOTZ, One-eleven Water Street, Hoboken. How do you like that?"

"Congratulations," said Chiun. "The joy of victory instead of the agony of defeat."

Remo hummed the Olympic anthem, and Chiun left the room.

Remo remembered Hoboken. It was a tight little town, only about a mile square, and when he had been with the Newark Police Department he had often gone to a restaurant on River Street, where he had stood at the bar with a lot of other men eating raw clams and throwing the shells on the floor. It was a famous men's bar and this was a custom that dated back to the nineteenth century. Then some women had sued, claiming an all-man's bar was a violation of their civil rights. The bar owners had fought in court but they had lost. The women came to the bar like avenging Valkyries. Within two days, they were complaining about the clam shells on the floor because they kept losing their balance when they stepped on shells in their high heels. Remo stopped going.

When he drove into Hoboken and turned on River Street, he felt a pinch of nostalgia as he passed the bar and restaurant. Life had been simpler in those days, but so had he. His body had been just a normal man's body, somehow managing to struggle through life. That was before Chiun had taught him that the average person used less than

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ten percent of his body's potential, and had shown Remo how to move up his percentages. The number for Remo now was fifty percent and climbing. Chiun told him that the only acceptable figure was 100 percent. The only 100 percenter in the world was frail, aged Chiun. That was one thing that Chiun had taught him. Another was that raw clams were mucus and no man should eat mucus and Remo realized with regret that he would never again eat another raw clam.

He turned toward the Hudson River. He had no trouble finding the loft building at One-eleven Water Street, because there was a crowd of young children milling around outside. As Remo parked the car, he saw a sign strung between the second-. floor windows of the building: pan-latin organization AGAINST TERRORIST ZIONISM.

A smaller sign imparted the information that the children had come to PLOTZ headquarters for a Meet-Your-Terrorist open house, at which they had been promised free hot dogs. The children were chewing on hot dogs wrapped in yellow napkins with printing on them.

Chiun asked Remo as they approached the building, "Are all these children poor and starving? Is this the seamy underside of America?" "No," Remo said. "Kids'11 eat anything." As he walked up the steps, he filched one of the napkins from under a child's frankfurter.

"How to make your own Molotov cocktail," the napkin said, and showed with drawings and simple text how to make a gasoline bottle bomb. "Nice folks," Remo mumbled.

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They were met at the top of the steps by a tall woman handing out hot dogs from a large black metal pot. She wore a bandanna around her head, and large, circular-lensed eyeglasses, tinted violet. The glasses were so large that Remo thought they made her look like a praying mantis. A beautiful praying mantis, but a praying mantis nevertheless. She wore blue jeans and a plaid shirt and her face was lightly tanned, but it was still smooth with none of the lines and wrinkles women get when they insist upon converting facial skin into leather. She placed a hot dog in Remo's hand. He turned and handed it to a child.

"No thanks," he said. "I already know how to make a bomb."

The young woman shrugged. "You never know, your memory might fail you." With a small smile, she reached out to place a hot dog in Chiun's hand. The old Oriental looked at her in disgust and folded his hands together inside the sleeves of his orange kimono.

"The frankfurters are really quite good," she said. "Even if you don't like the commercial that comes with it, the food is wholesome." Her accent was not quite American, Remo thought, but then neither was a Hoboken accent. Still, this wasn't a Hoboken accent. People often confused a New Jersey accent with a Brooklyn accent, but there was really little comparison. Brooklyn mispronounced certain syllables; New Jersey just ignored them. "Wholesome?" said, Chiun. "Pork?" "All beef," the woman said. "We have to answer to a higher authority."

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"That is worse," said Chiun, "for if there is anything more disgusting than eating pig, it is eating