Warren Murphy: Mugger Blood

In any other city, there would have been grand jury probes, governor's investigations, mayor's task forces looking into the problem. New York City just yawned and went about its business, its politicians even trying to promote the same mayor, the most inept in a long tradition of inept mayors, into the presidency of the United States.

Who could get upset in New York about just a few more indignities? There were so many indignities day after day.

Remo wondered why, and then a thought came to him.

Was it really America that was so bad? That was falling apart? Out there, across a land of three thousand miles, there were politicians and government officials who tried to do a good job. There Were cops more interested in catching muggers than in running classes to teach people to be mugged successfully. There were roads that were paved regularly so that people could drive on them with a good chance of getting to their destination at the same time as their auto's transmission. There were teachers who tried to teach. And often succeeded.

It wasn't America that had failed. That had fallen apart. It was New York, a city of permanently lowered expectations where people lived and surrendered to a lifestyle worse than almost anywhere else in the country. Where people gave up their right to shop in supermarkets at low prices and instead supported neighborhood delicatessens whose prices made the OPEC oil nations look charitable. Where people calmly accepted the fact that it would take forty-five minutes to move five blocks crosstown. Where people surrendered the right to own automobiles because there was no place to park them and no roads fit to drive them on and the streets were unsafe even for automobiles. Where people thought it was a good thing to have block patrols to fight crime, never considering that in most cities, police forces fought crime.

And New Yorkers put up with all of it and smiled to each other at cocktail parties, their shoes still reeking of the scent of dog-doo that covered the entire city to an average depth of seven inches, and clicked their glasses of white wine and said how they just simply wouldn't live anyplace else.

When New York City went bankrupt every eighteen months in one of its regularly scheduled bursts of Faroukian excess, its politicians liked to lecture the country, while begging for handouts, that New York was the heart and soul of America.

But it wasn't, Remo thought. It was the mouth of America, a mouth that never was still, flapping from television stations and networks and radio chains and magazines and newspapers, until even some people living in the Midwest began to believe that if New York City was so bad, well, then, by God, so was the rest of the country.

But it wasn't, Remo realized. America worked. It was New York City that didn't work. And the two of them weren't the same.

It made him feel better about his job.

"You can talk now," Remo said, releasing Tyrone's mouth.

"Ah forgot what ah was gonna say."

"Hold that thought," Remo said.

And as the cab pulled off the FDR drive at Thirty-fourth Street to head west and north again to the Plaza Hotel-its driver figuring to clip his passengers for an extra seventy cents by prolonging the trip-the Leader for Life of the Saxon Lords put his heavy hand on the shoulder of the aged Oriental in Suite 1621 at the Plaza.

"Awright, chinkey Charley," he said. "Yo' comin' wi£ us. Yo' and that honkey mufu you runs 'round wif." He shook the seated man's shoulder for emphasis. Or tried to shake the shoulder. It seemed to him a little odd that the frail, less than one-hundred-pound body did not move when he tried to shake it.

The old Oriental looked up at the Leader for Life, then at the hand on his left shoulder, then up again and smiled.

"You may leave this world happy," he said with a gracious look. "You have touched the person of the Master of Sinanju."

The Leader for Life giggled. The old gook, he talk funny. Like one of dem faggy honkey perfessers that was always on de television, talking, talking, all de time talking.

He giggled again. Showing de old chink a ting or two was gonna be fun. Real fun.

He took the heavy lead sap out of his back pants pocket, just as a cab pulled up in front of the Plaza on Sixtieth Street sixteen floors below.

Remo paid the driver and steered Tyrone Walker up the broad stone staircase into the lobby of the grand hotel.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

There were always sounds in a hotel corridor. There were people with the television on and other people singing as they dressed. Showers ran and toilets flushed and air conditioning hummed. In the Plaza, everything was fudged over with the traffic noise of New York City. The secret in sorting out the different noises was to focus the ears as most people focused their eyes.

When Remo and Tyrone came off the elevator on the sixteenth floor, Remo immediately heard the voices in Suite 1621. He could hear Chiun's voice, and he could hear other voices. Three, perhaps four.

Remo pushed Tyrone into the room first. Chiun was standing near a window, his back toward the street. The afternoon sun silhouetted him dark against the bright light pouring through the thin drapes that ran almost all the way up to the fourteen-foot-high ceiling.

Sitting on the floor facing Chiun were three young men wearing the blue denim jackets of the Saxon Lords. Their hands were neatly in their laps.

Stuffed off in a corner of the room was another young black man and Remo could tell from the awkward splay of his limbs that it was too late for him to worry about holding his hands properly. Sprinkled haphazardly about his body was a collection of blackjacks and brass knuckles.

Chiun nodded to Remo silently and kept speaking.

"Now try this," he said. "I will obey the law."

The three black youths spoke in unison. "Ah will obeys de law."

"No, no, no," Chiun said. "With me. I, not Ah."

"I," the three men said slowly, with difficulty.

"Very good," Chiun said. "Now. I will obey. Not obeys. Obey."

"I will obey."

"That's correct. Now. The law. Not de law. The. Your tongue must protrude slightly from your mouth and be touched by your upper teeth. Like this." He demonstrated. "The. The. The law."

"The law," the men said slowly.

"Fine. And now the whole thing. I will obey the law."

"Ah will obeys de law."

"What?" shrieked Chiun.

Remo laughed. "By George, I think they've got it. Now try them on the rain in Spain."

"Silence… honkey," Chiun spat. He fixed the three youths with hazel eyes that seemed cut from stone. "You. This time, right."

"I. Will. Obey. The. Law." The three men spoke slowly, carefully.

"Again."

"I will obey the law." Faster this time.

"Very good," Chiun said.

"Can we go now, massa?"

"It is not massa. It is Master. Master of Sinanju."

Tyrone said, "Brothers," and the three black men wheeled and stared at him. Their eyes were alive with terror and not even seeing Tyrone standing next to Remo alleviated it.

"Repeat your lessons for the nice gentleman," Chiun said.

As if they were all on one string, the three heads jerked around to face Chiun.

"I will respect the elderly. I will not steal or kill. I will obey the law."

"Very good," Chiun said.

Remo jerked his thumb toward the body in the corner. "Slow learner?"

"I did not have a chance to find out. To teach them, first it was necessary to get their attention. He happened to be the best way to do it, since he had touched my person."

Chiun looked down at the three youths.

"You may stand now."

The three got slowly to their feet. They appeared ill at ease, unsure of what to do with themselves. Tyrone, not having undergone Chiun's good manners school, solved the problem by engaging them in a complicated round robin of hand-slapping greetings, hands apart, hands together, palms up, palms down, palms sliding across other palms. It looked, Remo thought, like pattycake class at a mental institution.