Warren Murphy: Voodoo Die

Ruby was sitting on her stool in front of Chiun's cot. Chiun was seated. They were playing dice on the sheet.

"Who's winning?" Remo asked.

"I do not understand this game," Chiun said.

"I'm winning," Ruby said. "Two hundred dollars."

Chiun was shaking his head. "If she rolls a seven, she wins. I roll a seven and I lose. This I do not understand."

"Just the way the rules are," Ruby said. "It's all right. I trust you for the money. Besides we got to stop now."

She came to Remo and whispered, "How's he do that?"

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"Do what?"

"Roll a seven whenever he wants. They my dice, too."

"That's our business," Remo said. "We're gambling experts for the U.S. government. We came down here to open a luxury hotel and casino. We were going to open one in Atlantic City but we couldn't figure out who to bribe."

"Stop talking smart," Ruby said.

"Got any more greens?" Remo asked.

"You slept through lunch," Ruby said. "You slow, you blow."

Til show you how to roll the dice if you feed me," Remo bribed.

"We don't have time," Ruby said. "Besides, the greens all gone. Old gentlemans eat them all."

"Too bad. I'll show you what you're missing. Chiun, toss me the dice, please."

Ruby watched. Chiun held the two red dice in his right hand, looking at the white spots. He curled his long-nailed fingers, then propelled the dice from his palm. Faster than Ruby's eyes could follow, they sped across the ten feet of space between the two men, whirring.

Remo plucked them out of the air between his fingers, like a magician materializing a back-palmed card.

"Watch now," he said to Ruby. "I'll play you for ten dollars."

He shook the dice, called "Nine" and dropped the pair on the dirt floor. They hit, rolled, and turned up six and three.

Remo picked them up again. "Four," he said. "Hard way." He rolled the dice across the floor in a pair of twos.

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He picked them up again. "Pick a number," he said. "Any number."

"Twelve," Ruby said.

Remo shook the dice and rolled a pair of sixes in the dirt.

"Twelve," he said proudly.

"Boxcars! You lose," Ruby shrieked. "Where's my ten dollars?"

Remo looked at her in astonishment. "Chiun. I know how you lost."

"How?"

"She cheated."

"You just a sore loser," Ruby said. "I collect later. Come on now, we got to go." As they went out the back door of the shack, Ruby told Remo, "I forget the ten dollars if you teach me to roll dice like that."

"Anybody can learn," Remo said.

"How long it taker

"Average person, forty years, four hours a day. You, twenty years."

"Then it took you sixty years and you ain't that old. How you do it?" Ruby demanded.

She was leading them toward a pre-World War II green Plymouth that looked like a "speed kills" display by the National Safety Council.

"It's all feel," Remo said. "You feel the dice."

"I wanna know how you do it, not how you feel. You decide you going to tell me, you and me we can make a deal."

"I'll think about it," Remo said.

Ruby herded them into the car, started the motor, and drove off. She drove around the backs of shacks, avoiding children and chickens, until she was out of the main city. Then she cut through some barren flat-land to get onto the main road. Remo noted approv-

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ingly that she drove the old car expertly, not riding the clutch, shifting smoothly and changing ,gears at the precise moment to get the maximum power out of the old wreck.

"Mind telling us where we're going?" Remo asked. "We gonna finish this all up now, so I can get home," Ruby said. "By the time I get back to my wig factory, those damn 'Bamas, they have theyselves a union and everything. This trip be costing me money." Her tone left no doubt that Ruby thought losing money was important.

"How are we going to finish it up?" Remo said. "Correction. I'm going to finish it up. You going to watch. This no job for a dice tosser." "How?" Remo insisted.

"We gonna overthrow Corazon and we gonna put a new man in. And we gonna get that machine of his and you going to take it back to Washington with you."

"You've got it all figured out," Remo said. "Trust your old Ruby. And stay outa the way if things hot up, 'cause I don't wanna have to explain how I lost you."

"Are there any more home like you?" asked Remo. "Nine sisters. You wanna get married?" "Not unless they cook like you." Ruby shook her head. "They wouldn't have you, anway. Except one of 'em, she kinda stupid, she maybe would take you."

"You know, you're the first CIA type I ever met who could cook," Remo said.

"Stop talking stuff to me," Ruby said. "You know I'm the first CIA type you ever met who knew how to do anything. But they pav on time." "Hear, hear,'' called Chiun from the back seat. "You 171

see, Remo. This young lady knows what is important."

"You got trouble collecting from that Doctor Smith? He a tight and tired-ass-sounding old thing."

"Actually," Chiun said, "only Remo works for Smith. I work for the President. But Smith is supposed to pay us. He is awful. If I were not on him constantly, we would never get our stipend. And it is not nearly what we are worth."

"Well, maybe you," Ruby said, "but . . ." She nodded toward Remo.

"Chiun, knock it off," Remo said. "You get your pay all the time. You have it delivered by special submarine, for God's sake. And I don't notice you wanting for anything."

"Respect," Chiun said. "There are things, Remo, that money cannot buy. Respect."

Remo could tell by the way Ruby set her lips that she did not agree with Chiun, but wasn't prepared to argue it with him.

Ciudad Natividado was now far behind them. They were speeding along Route 1 toward the far-off hills. The dusty road was a meager two-lane strip cut through an overhang of jungle trees, so it seemed to Remo as if he were riding through a green tunnel. Even inside the car the sound of the drums was growing louder.

Remo heard a faint tapping sound and realized a light shower was falling. He was protected from it by the overhang of the trees.

Ruby noticed it, too. "Good," she said. "The old man told me it'd rain. We need that."

"Will someone please tell me what you're up to?" Remo asked exasperatedly.

"You'll see. We're almost there." She slowed down

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and as she did she twisted in her seat to look behind her. Far behind were two cars.

"'Less I miss my guess, that be Corazon," Ruby said. "Right on time."

Ahead Remo saw the black pitch pit at the base of the hill. It seemed to be giving off steam. Ruby pulled the old Plymouth off the road through brush and past walls of vines and stumps until she was fifty feet from the road, as unseeable as an Alabama motorcycle cop hiding behind a billboard.

"Now you two wait here. And keep your little lips still, you," she told Remo. "We don' want nothin' going wrong."

She jumped from the car and a few moments later had vanished into the brush.

"That woman thinks I'm an idiot," Remo groused to Chiun.

"Hmmm," said Chiun. "The rain has stopped."

"Well?"

"Well, what?" asked Chiun.

"What do you think about her thinking I'm an idiot?" Remo demanded.

"Some are wise beyond their years."

Ruby met Samedi walking slowly down the hillside toward the pitch pit. He wore the same shirtless black trousers and bare feet, but for the occasion he wore a top hat and a white collar around his bare neck. In his hand he carried a long bone that looked like the thighbone of a human being.

"Hurry, holy one," Ruby said in Spanish. "Corazon is almost on us."

He glanced up at the sky. The sun was moving out from behind a gray cloud.

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"The sun will shine," he said. "It is a good day for doing good works."

He followed Ruby down the hillside. She stopped ten feet from the tar pits, near a large rock outcropping.