Warren Murphy: King's Curse

"What are forceps?" asked Chiun softly. "They're things you grab with, like pliers," said the detective. Chiun shook his head precisely once. The wisp of beard created a floating wave within itself, then quieted.

"No," said Chiun. "They are wrong. This wound was made by a stone knife."

"How the hell can you tell that?" said the detective disbelievingly.

"Because I look," said Chiun. "If you look, you will see no long tear of murder, which is what happens when the body is torn apart in anger. No. There are small horizontal tears across the arteries, and these are made by a stone knife. Have you ever made a stone knife?"

The detective allowed as he had not. "A stone knife," said Chiun, "is made by chipping to sharp edges, not grinding straight like metal. And these sorts of knives are sharp at some points and not sharp at others. They are used more like saws after they go into something. Do you see?"

"No kidding?" said the detective. A cold ash fell from his unlit cigar into the chest cavity as he peered into the body. "Sorry," he said. The detective puzzled a moment.

"Maybe you can help us with something else," he said. From the left breast pocket in his shiny seersucker jacket he took a photocopy sheet rolled up like a scroll.

It was about eight inches wide but twenty-four inches long and had twelve dark sections of writing when it was unrolled.

"What's this?" asked the detective, handing the sheet to Chiun. "We made it from an original found under the head of the body."

Chiun looked at the long sheet carefully. He examined the edges. He felt the surface of the paper, then nodded wisely.

"This is a copy of a document produced by an American machine that makes such copies."

"Yeah, we know it's a photocopy, but what does the note mean?"

"It is in twelve different languages," said Chiun. "And one of them I do not understand, nor have I seen. The Chinese I know, the French and Arabic I know, the Hebrew and Russian I know. Here it is again, in real language. In Korean. The Sanskrit and Aramaic I know. The Swahili and the Urdu and Spanish I know. But the first language I do not know."

"We think it's a ritual-murder and the note is part of the ritual. Death for kicks sort of thing," said the detective. Remo glanced over Chiun's shoulders at the note.

"What do you think, Remo?" asked Chiun.

"Is he an expert?" asked the detective.

"He is learning," said Chiun.

"I don't know," said Remo, "but I'd guess all those languages say the same thing."

Chiun nodded.

"But what is this symbol here?" Remo pointed to a rough rectangular drawing in the middle of the text of the unknown language.

"In the other languages on this paper, it is called an Uctut," said Chiun.

"What is an Uctut?" asked Remo.

"I do not know. What is a Joey 172?" Chiun asked.

"I don't know. Why?" said Remo.

"Because that is in the note, too," Chiun said.

"So what does it all mean?" asked the detective. "We've had trouble making heads or tails out of it."

Chiun raised his delicate hands and signaled ignorance.

Outside, in the muggy, grimy New York City streets, with traffic jammed to a horn-blaring standstill, Chiun explained.

"It was a note of demand for reparations," he said. "It was not clear because it was written in the lofty language of a religion. But whoever wrote it demands that a 'Joey 172' be punished for some sort of offense to an Uctut. And until this country punishes this Joey 172, then the servants of Uctut will continue to ease his pain with blood."

"I still don't understand," said Remo.

"Your country gives up Joey 172, whatever that is, or more will die," said Chiun.

"Who gives a shit?" asked Bobbi.

"I do," said Remo.

"This bright, beautiful, and charming young woman makes much sense," said Chiun.

"If you care, then do your thing," Bobbi said to Remo. "Find Joey 172."

"She makes sense," Chiun said, "when she is not talking stupid. Like now."

Remo smiled. "I think I know how to find Joey 172. Have you ever ridden on a New York City subway?"

"No," said Chiun, and he was not about to.

CHAPTER FIVE

Antwan Pedaster Jackson felt he had an obligation to bring wisdom to whites. For example, the old woman with the frayed brown shopping bag riding on the rear of the "D" train after seven p.m. Didn't she know that whites weren't supposed to ride the subways after that hour? She sure enough seemed to realize it now. as he moseyed into the empty car with Sugar Baby Williams, both seniors at Martin Luther King High School, where Sugar Baby was going to graduate as valedictorian because he could read faster than anyone else and without moving his lips either, except on the hard words. But even the teacher couldn't read the hard words at Martin Luther King.

"You know where you is?" asked Antwan.

The old woman, her face lined with years of toil, looked up from her rosary, fingering a Hail Mary. A faded yellow and red babushka cradled her heartlike face. She moved the paper shopping bag tighter between her knees.

"I am sorry I do not speak the English well," she said.

"This the Noo Yawk subway," said Sugar Baby, the valedictorian.

"This aftah the rush hour, honkey," said Antwan.

"You not s'posed to be being hyeah," said Sugar Baby.

"I am sorry I do not speak English well," said the woman.

"Wha you got in that there bag?" said Sugar Baby.

"Old clothes which I mend," said the woman.

"You got bread?" asked Antwan. To her look of confusion, he explained: "Money?"

"I am a poor woman. I have just coins for my supper."

To this, Antwan took great umbrage and brought a flat smacking black hand across the woman's white face.

"Ah don't like liars. Ain't nobody tell you lying a sin?" asked Antwan.

"It shameful," said Sugar Baby and smacked her in the other direction.

"No. No. No. Do not hit," cried the woman as she tried to cover her head.

"Get yo' hand down," demanded Antwan, and he banged her a shot in the head. Then he tried his latest karate chop on her right shoulder, but a fist proved better. It knocked the babushka off and sent blood trickling from her right earlobe. Sugar Baby hoisted the old woman to her feet and rammed her head against the window behind the train seat while Antwan rummaged through her pockets. They got $1.17, so Sugar Baby hit her again for being so cheap.

They got off at the next stop, commenting on how they had made the subways once again free of whites after nightfall. It did not occur to them that they had also helped make the subway system of New York City equally free of blacks and Puerto Ricans after that hour. They watched the empty train roll by, headed for Mosholu Parkway, the last station on the D train with the next stop the open yards.

There was not much to do with $1.17, but they went upstairs to the street anyway. It was a white neighborhood, which meant the racist storeowners didn't have everything locked up or hidden away out of reach, as in the black neighborhoods. Antwan and Sugar Baby, free of this racist store-owner mentality, enjoyed themselves like free men in these stores and markets where goods were displayed openly for people to handle, inspect, and then decide upon purchasing. At the end of this small sojourn off the Grand Concourse, they had three cans of aerosol spray paint, three bottles of Coke, four Twinkies, eight candy bars, a nudie magazine, and a bar of Cashmere Bouquet soap. And they still had their $1.17 left.

"Wha you rip that soap off for?" demanded Sugar Baby.

"Maybe we can sell it," said Antwan.

"That stupid," said Sugar Baby. "Who gonna buy a bar of soap around our neighborhood?"

"We could use it, maybe?" said Antwan thoughtfully. He had seen a television show once where a woman ran water over soap and then rubbed the resulting foam onto her face.