Warren Murphy: King's Curse

Reddington fell, eyes still iced over.

"Killer! Killer!," Valerie shrieked.

"Quiet," Remo said. "You're going to get yours."

Bobbie looked up from the television set. "Do it now," she said, "Get rid of this twit and let's go out and hit a few. There's an all-night court over on the East Side. Clay court too. I don't like playing on hard surfaces. And you don't get a true bounce on grass. Unless you've got a big serve. If you've got a big serve, then I'd probably give you a better game on grass because it'd slow down your serve."

"I don't play tennis," Remo said.

"That's revolting," Bobbi said. "This one was right. He should have killed you."

"Quiet. Both of you," Remo said. "I'm trying to think."

"This should be good," Valerie said.

"Think about taking up tennis," Bobbi said.

Remo decided instead to think about how much he remembered the boy scout adviser who had come to the orphanage in Newark to start a scout troop. All the orphans over twelve, Remo included, had joined because the nuns had ordered them to. That had lasted only until the nuns found out that the scoutmaster was teaching the boys how to start fires with flint and steel, and three mattress fires in an old wooden building with a flash point somewhat lower than butane gas convinced the nuns to evict the boy scouts and think about affiliation with a 4-H club.

Remo had never learned how to build a fire with flint and steel. He hadn't been able to steal a lump of flint from any of the other boys, and the little pieces that came in cigarette lighters were too small to get a good grip on.

But Remo had learned knots. The scoutmaster had been a whiz on knots. Bowlines and sheepshanks and clove hitches. Square knots. Right over left and left over right. Remo thought about those knots. Bowlines were best, he decided. The knot was designed for tying together two different thicknesses of rope and this would come in very handy when he trussed up Bobbi and Valerie with the thick pieces of drapery rope and the thin cord from the Venetian blinds.

"We'll scream for help," Valerie threatened.

"You do that and I'll tie a sheepshank on you, too," said Remo.

He tied up Valerie with bowlines. He tied another drapery cord over her mouth in a gag and fastened it with a clove hitch. It came loose so he changed it to a square knot tied tightly behind her neck.

"You?" he said to Bobbi.

"Actually I was planning to be quiet," she said.

"Good," said Remo, tying her up but leaving off the gag. "The old gentleman is sleeping inside. If you're unlucky enough to wake him up before he chooses to rise, it's going to be game, set, and match point for you, kid."

"I understand," she said, but Remo wasn't listening. He was wondering what had gone wrong with the clove hitch he had tried to use to tie Valerie's mouth. He tried it again when he packaged Reddington for his Alaskan sabbatical and was pleased when the knots held very tightly.

It gave him a warm feeling of accomplishment that he kept all the way to the railway station, where he mailed Reddington to Alaska, and on a long all-night walk through Central Park, where he fed a mugger to the ducks, and all the way back to his hotel suite, when he found out that Bobbi was gone.

She had been kidnapped.

CHAPTER TEN

Chiun was sitting in the center of the floor watching television. Valerie was trussed in a corner of the room.

"Where's Bobbi?" Remo said.

Valerie mumbled through her gag. "Gree--grawkgra. Neargh, graw, graw."

"Shut up," said Remo. "Chiun, where's Bobbi?"

Chiun did not turn. He raised, a hand over his head as if in dismissal.

Remo sighed and reluctantly started to untie the gag from Valerie's mouth. It was triple-knotted, and the square knots he had used had given way to some other kind of knot Remo had never seen before. His fingers had to pick tightly at the strands of drapery sash before he got the gag off.

"He did it, he did it," said Valerie. She nodded at Chiun.

"Shhhhh," Chiun hissed

"Shut up," Remo said to Valerie. "Where's Bobbi?"

"They came for her. Three men in the yellow feathered robes. I tried to tell him, but he tied me up again. Pig!" she shouted across the room at Chiun.

"Kid, do yourself a favor and knock that off," Remo said.

A commercial came on the television. For the next two minutes and five seconds, Remo had Chiun to himself.

"Chiun, did you see them take Bobbi?"

"If you mean was I awakened from my few golden moments of rest by uncalled for intrusions, yes. If you mean when I came out here, did this disciple of the open mouth verbally abuse me with her noise, yes. If you mean-"

"I mean did you see the three men take the other girl away?"

"If you mean, did I see three creatures who looked like the big bird on the children's program, yes. I laughed, they were so funny."

"And you just let them go?" Remo said.

"This one was making enough noise for two persons, even through the gag that was so ineptly tied. I did not need a second female here to make even more noise. If they had promised to come back for this one, I would have put her outside the door to await them, as if she were an empty bottle of milk."

"Dammit, Chiun. Those were the people I wanted. We've been looking for them. What do you think we've had these girls here for? In the hope that those Indians would come to us."

"Correction. You have been looking for those people. I have carefully avoided looking for them."

"That girl's going to be killed. I hope you're proud of yourself."

"There are too many tennis players in the world already."

"She's going to have her heart cut out."

"Perhaps they will settle for her tongue."

"That's right. Make fun," Valerie shrieked. "You miserable old man."

Chiun turned around and looked behind him.

"Who is she talking to?" he asked Remo.

"Ignore her."

"I try to. I came out of my room and I was so kind as to untie her mouth. That proves that even the Master is not beyond error. The noise that came out. So I retied her."

"And you just let those three yellow ostriches take Bobbi away?"

"I was getting tired of talking about tennis," said Chiun. "It is a stupid game anyway."

The commercial ended, and he turned his face away from Remo and back toward the television set, where Dr. Ranee McMasters was congratulating Mrs. Wendell Waterman on her elevation to acting chairman of the Silver City Bicentennial Commission, a post she was hastily named to when the permanent chairman, Mrs. Ferd Delanettes, contracted a terminal case of syphilis, given her by Dr. Ranee McMasters, who was now talking softly to Mrs. Waterman, preparatory to giving her a dose of her own in the twenty-three hours and thirty minutes between the end of this day's episode and the start of tomorrow's.

"Is there any chance, any slight chance," Remo asked Valerie, "that while those dingdongs were here, you kept your mouth shut long enough to hear anything they said?"

"I heard every word, freak," she said.

"Give me a few."

"The biggest one-"

"Did you ever see any of them before?" Remo asked.

"What a stupid question!" Valerie said. "How many people do you see in New York wearing yellow feathers?"

"More this year than last. They weren't born with feathers, you know. Underneath there are men. They look like men. Did you recognize any of them?"

"No."

"Okay, what'd they say?"

"The biggest one said, 'Miss Delpheen?' and she nodded, and he said, 'You are coming with us.' "

"And what happened?"

"They untied her and-"

"Did she say anything?"

"No. What could she say?"

"I'll bet you could have thought of something. What else?"

"Then they took her by the hands and walked out the door. That one-" She nodded to Chiun, "He came out of the bedroom. He saw them, but instead of trying to stop them, he went and turned on the television set. They left. I tried to call him, and he untied my mouth, but when I told him that she had been kidnapped, he tied my mouth again."