Warren Murphy: Mugger Blood

As her finger began to tighten on the trigger, Remo picked up half of the white ring and tossed it at her, skidding it off the ends of his fingertips with enough force that it whirred as it traveled the four feet to Ingrid.

Her finger squeezed the trigger just as the piece of the ring hit the barrel of the gun with hammer force, driving the muzzle upward under Ingrid's chin. It was too late for her brain to recall the firing signal.

The gun exploded, one muffled shot, which ripped upward through Ingrid's chin, passed through the bottom half of her skull, and buried itself in her brain.

Eyes still open, lips still pulled back in a cat snarl of anger, she dropped the gun and fell onto her side on the bed. The gun clanked to the floor. A thin trail of blood poured from the bullet wound in her chin, slipping down throat and shoulders until it reached the blue satin of her robe which absorbed it and turned almost black.

Remo looked at the dead body, shrugged casually, and left the room.

In the living room, without turning from the window through which he assayed New York City, Chiun said, "I'm glad that's over with."

"Did ah hears a shot?" asked Tyrone.

"You sure do," said Remo. "Time to go."

"Go where?"

"You're going home, Tyrone."

"You lettin' me go?"

"Yeah."

"Good thing," said Tyrone, jumping to his feet. "So long."

"Not so quick. You're going with us," Remo said.

"Whuffo?"

"Just in case this big bear or whatever his name is is around. I want you to point him out to me."

"He a big mean muvver. He kill me if he find out I finger him for you."

"And what will I do?" Remo asked.

"Aw, sheeeit," said Tyrone.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

All the streetlights were out on the block which housed the Iron Dukes' clubrooms.

Remo stood under one of the unworking lights and touched his toe to the broken glass on the street. The block seemed weighted down with summer dampness. All the building lights on the street were out too and Tyrone looked around nervously.

"Ah don' like dis place," he said. "Too dark."

"Somebody made it that way for us," Remo said. "Are they there, Chiun?"

"Yes," Chiun said. "Across the street."

"How many of them?"

"Many bodies," Chiun said. "Perhaps thirty."

"Wha' you talkin' 'bout?" Tyrone asked.

"Tyrone," Remo explained patiently. "Somebody just busted all the streetlights to make this block dark. And now whoever did it is hiding around here, waiting… don't look around like that, you dip… hiding around here waiting for us."

"Ah don' like dat," Tyrone said. "What's we gone do?"

"What we're going to do is Chiun and I are going up to see Spesk. You're going to stay down here and see if you see Big-Big whatsisface. And when I come down, you point him out to me."

"Ah don' wanna."

"You better," Remo said. They left Tyrone standing at the curb and followed a small single light upstairs into a large office that had a desk at the far end of the room.

Behind the desk sat Tony Spesk, good old Tony, appliance salesman, Carbondale, Illinois, AKA Colonel Speskaya, NKVD. His gooseneck lamp was twisted so it shone in his visitors' faces.

"We meet again," Spesk said. "Ingrid is dead, of course."

"Of course," Remo said. He took a few steps forward into the room.

"Before you try anything foolish," Spesk said, "I should advise you that there is an electronic eye in this room. If you attempt to reach me, you will break the beam and set off a crossfire of machine guns. Do not be foolish."

Chiun looked at the walls of the vacant room and nodded. On the left wall, there were electric eye units starting six inches above the floor, and then one each foot higher until they stopped eight feet above the floor, one foot below the ceiling. He nodded to Remo.

"Now, have you considered my offer?" Spesk said.

"Yes. Considered and rejected," Remo said.

"That's a shame," said Spesk. "I would not have thought you were patriots."

"Patriotism has nothing to do with it," said Remo. "We just don't like you people."

"Russians have been worthless since the time of Ivan the Great," said Chiun.

"The Terrible, you mean," Spesk said.

"The Great," Chiun insisted.

"He paid on time," Remo explained.

"Well, then I guess there's nothing more to talk about," Spesk said.

"One thing," said Remo. "These two weapons you're after. What are they?"

"You don't know, do you?" asked Spesk after a pause.

"No," said Remo.

"The old man knows though. Don't you?"

Remo looked over to see Chiun nod.

"Well, if you know so much, Chiun, why didn't you tell me?" Remo asked.

"Sometimes it is easier to talk to Tyrone," Chiun said.

"Tell me now. What two weapons?" Remo said.

"You," said Chiun. "And me."

"Us?" Rerno said.

"We," Chiun said.

"Sheeit. All this for that."

"Enough," said Spesk. "We cannot deal and that is that. You may leave and later I will leave. And perhaps we will meet again someday."

"We're the weapons you wanted?" Remo asked again.

Spesk nodded, his thin blond hair splashing about his face as he did.

"You're a jerk," Remo said.

"Time now for you to leave," Spesk said.

"Not yet," Remo said. "You understand it's nothing personal but, well, Chiun and I don't like too many people to know about what work we do and who we work for. And you know a little too much."

"Remember the electric eyes," Spesk said confidently.

"Remember the Alamo," said Remo. He rocked back onto his left foot, then moved forward toward the invisible strings of light reaching from left wall to right wall. Three feet before reaching the beams, he turned toward the wall, reached up high with his right foot, followed with his left foot and launched his body upward. His stomach came within an eighth of an inch of hitting the ceiling as he turned onto his back, floating over the topmost beam as if it were the bamboo pole at a high-jump event. Then Remo was over the lights, onto Spesk's side of the room. He landed on his feet soundlessly.

The Russian colonel's eyes opened wide in shock and horror. He got heavily to his feet behind the desk, his left knee still defective where Remo had damaged it.

He moved away from Remo.

"Listen," he said. His Chicago middle-America accent had vanished. He spoke now with the thick guttural rasp of a native Russian. "You don't want to kill me. I'm the only one who can get you out of here alive. It's a trap."

"We know that," Remo said. "We'll take our chances."

He moved toward Spesk and Spesk dove for the desk drawer. His hand was into the drawer closing around a gun, when Remo snatched up the gooseneck lamp from the desk and looped it over Spesk's head, around his throat, and yanked him back from the revolver. He tied the gooseneck in one large knot and dropped Spesk's body to the floor. So much for the Russian spies; so much for the secret weapons.

As Remo was vaulting back over the electric eyes, now visible in the pitch-black room, he said, "Why didn't you tell me, Chiun? About the weapons?"

"Who can explain anything to a white man?" Chiun said. He was already at the door and going down the steps.

Except for the sucking of air by people who didn't know how to breathe correctly, the street outside the Iron Dukes' was silent when Remo and Chiun came through the door and stood on the sidewalk.

"Still say thirty?" Remo asked.

Chiun cocked his head to listen. "Thirty-four," he said.

"That's not bad. I hope one of them is the one I want. Where the hell is Tyrone?" Remo said.

"One of the thirty-four," Chiun said, just as they heard a roar. Tyrone's roar.

"There they are. Get dem. Get dem. Dey kidnap me and everyfing."

Like predatory animals whose coats blended in with the grass, the black youths of the Saxon Lords rose up out of their protective coloration of night and with a full-throated roar charged across the street toward Remo and Chiun.