Warren Murphy: The Final Death

"Hello, Smitty. I just got a call."

"So did I. What was your call about?"

"Probably the poisoners. They have Viki Angus and want me to walk into a trap to save her. What was your call about?"

"We think we traced the source of the poison in the meat," said Smith.

"Oh?"

"Yes. We went over Angus' last report and it's apparent now the toughness of the meat around the USDA stamp was caused by the poison."

Remo whistled. "So all I have to do is wipe out the Department of Agriculture, right?"

"There's a government inspector at every packing plant," Smith said. "It wouldn't be hard to run in a ringer."

"And at slaughterhouses too?" Remo asked.

"Yes. Why?"

"Never mind. I'll be in touch." Remo hung up.

"Little father, I have some business to attend to."

"Remo," said Chiun, unmoving. "I know, I know. You don't want me to go, right? These vampires will be there and they'll cut my hand again and stick in a straw and suck out my soul like a McDonald's shake, right?"

"No," said Chiun wearily.

"Oh. So you want to come too? You want to help your poor, uneducated pale piece of a pig's ear through his time of crisis?"

"No."

"No?" Remo was surprised. "No?" Remo was amazed, slightly worried and a little bit hurt.

"No," repeated Chiun. "Go with peace, my son. Remember what I have taught you. You are ready. Represent Sinanju."

Chiun turned back to the window. His head was bowed as if in silent prayer. Suddenly he looked small in the big Hilton hotel room and the bright gray mass of Houston stretching beyond.

Remo did not like him looking that way. "Hey, Little Father. There's nothing to worry about."

And when Chiun did not answer; Remo asked:

"Is there?"

"Nothing, my son," came the small, dead Oriental voice. "It is day, so beware the shimmering mists. When night falls, beware the darkest shadows. Go, my son."

Remo nodded slowly to the old man's back, then moved toward the door. Perhaps Chiun would feel better when Remo got back with Viki.

"Remo."

Remo turned to see Chiun facing him. "I have no doubt of you," Chiun said. Remo nodded. "Don't have any doubts, Little Father. And when I get back, then we'll figure out how we're going to take the television world by storm with your new daytime drama."

"I have no doubt of you," Chiun repeated. The door closed behind Remo and he drifted down the hall, not hearing Chiun continue speaking to himself.

"But I have doubt of us. It is their secret that they divide to kill. Yet if we do not divide, we run the chance of both dying. Here, if one dies, the other may yet live and learn enough from that dying to wash this evil away from the earth forever. Be careful, my son."

Gluck sat across the street in a second-floor sequin-wholesaler's shop with a closed sign on the outside hall door. A pair of heavy binoculars were stuck on his eyes and a large, dull green cannister was between his legs.

"What if he goes out the back way?" asked Yat-Sen.

"Charlie said he'd come out the front way," said Gluck.

"Why are you using those stupid binoculars? You can see the entrance from here," said Yat-Sen.

"Charlie said that we had better not miss him," said Gluck.

"Charlie said, Charlie said," said Yat-Sen in disgust.

Gluck laughed and Yat-Sen joined him.

"Now cut that out," hooted Gluck, still holding the binoculars to his eyes. "We have to make sure we don't miss him."

"What do you mean we, Kimosabe?" said Yat-Sen. "I don't know about you, but I'm going back to that pretty little bookkeeper."

Gluck lowered the field glasses and turned, saying irritably: "I thought I told you to kill her. We can't have any witnesses."

"I will, I will," said Yat-Sen. "But she helps me pass the time. She jumps so high when I touch her there." He giggled.

"You, killed the other one though, right?" asked Gluck, turning back to the window.

"Sure. He's back there with her now. You want to check?"

"Naw," said Gluck, bringing the binoculars back up to his eyes. "Have fun."

"Sure," repeated Yat-Sen who moved across the wood floor in the wood-paneled sequin supply store. He moved through beautiful multicolored designs strung from the ceiling, hung on the walls and bags of sequins stacked on the floor until he reached the door for the back room.

Gluck turned quickly when he heard the knob creak and saw the back of a bloody gray head on the floor and a blonde girl strapped to a wooden chair with leather belts and knee socks. Her rose-colored shirt was open to the waist, her denim skirt was pulled up around her hips, and her stockings were rammed deep down her throat.

Gluck heard a dim, muffled sobbing and choking before Yat-Sen closed the door behind him. Gluck shook his head in amazement at what some people found kicky, then went back to his stake-out.

Five minutes later he saw a tall, thin man in a black T-shirt and blue slacks come out the main entrance and talk to the bell captain.

The bell captain replied silently, then pointed west. In the direction of Texas Solly's Vine Square Slaughterhouse. The bell captain began to call up a taxi but the man in the black T-shirt held up his hand and began to lope in a western direction.

Gluck put the binoculars down, stood up, and slowly closed the window.

"That's it," he shouted.

As he moved toward the back room, he heard the faucet running behind the closed door. Then Yat-Sen came out, drying his hands on his pants. Before he closed the door behind him Gluck saw that the chair was empty. He just glimpsed the back of a shapely leg behind the bloody gray head before the door closed.

"Took a fancy to her, did you?" asked Gluck, smiling.

"Naw," said Yat-Sen. "She choked to death before I even started."

"Too bad," said Gluck. "Let's go."

Yat-Sen collected the thin rubber hose while Gluck retrieved the green cannister with the spigot on top.

"Do we have to wear the red costumes this time?" whined Yat-Sen, who was disappointed that he had to have sex with a dead girl instead of one who fought and he could beat up.

"Why bother?" said Gluck. "Charlie and Mary don't care anymore. Who's going to tell them we didn't? Let's just go up there, do it and peel him. I don't want to miss the action at the slaughterhouse."

The two ran, laughing, across the street, ignoring the traffic, and going through the hotel's swinging doors marked, "Please use revolving doors. Emergency use only."

They ignored the bell captain, the bellboys and the rest of the people in the lobby. They walked to the elevators, carrying the green cannister and the rubber hose past the registration desk, the information desk, and the reservation desk. The registration man, the information lady, and the reservation couple did not think to question them.

The elevator operator did. "What's that, guys?" he queried.

"For the air conditioning," said Gluck.

"Twelfth floor," said Yat-Sen.

The elevator operator did not question them further.

Chiun sat on his mat in the middle of the 12th-floor hotel room, seeking solace from his ancestors.

His thoughts went back and back and back and back until he was visiting a deep part of his mind where he rarely went. His childhood. The time, the very short time in childhood he had before he took the role of Master from his father.

His father had been tall and strong and handsome and brave. His hazel eyes had been clear until the very day of his departure from this world. His hands and feet and body were faster than had ever been known. Faster than Remo. Faster even than his own son, Chiun.

Chiun remembered the undead. About how the mist had claimed the leader of their village by day and he had run, gibbering and killing indiscriminately until the Master had brought shame and ruin upon himself by mercifully ending the leader's pain.