Warren Murphy: King's Curse

"We are all of Indian blood," said the man with the pointed stone.

"That's lovely," said Mrs. Delpheen. "I think the beauty of America is that so many groups have made such significant contributions. But you see, the… uh… Incas weren't one of them."

"Not Inca. Actatl."

"I've never heard of them."

"Because you would not allow us to live. Not in our real skins. So we chose your skins and your hair and your eyes, but we are all Actatl. All we wished for was to live. But you would not let us. Not in our real skins. Now you have violated what we hold precious and worthy, the stone of our ancestors, the life force of our hearts, the most gracious and central inspiration of our being. So holy that you may only know it as Uctut."

"Well, I'm certainly sorry for anything I have done. I'm sure we can make amends."

"You shall."

Two of the men in feathered capes latched onto Mrs. Delpheen's wrists, and she said there was no need to be physical. But when the other two reached for her ankles, she had another idea.

"All right, if it's kinky rape you want, I can't stop you. But at least let's go into the bedroom."

They hoisted her bulky frame to the desktop, and the man with the pointed stone chanted a monotone song in a language and tune she did not recognize. She tried twisting an arm from a locking grip, but it only was gripped even more firmly. She tried kicking, but she couldn't get a leg back far enough for a good forward thrust. She smelled the sharp odor of fear and excitement, like urine mixed with a stale perfume. The man holding her right wrist had pupil-wide eyes, just like her first husband had had at orgasm. Sweat made his yellowish forehead glisten in the gentle light from the crystal cut chandelier overhead. A small stone replica of an Egyptian pyramid she had used for a paperweight cut painfully into her right hip, but she could not get her body shifted to avoid it. The two men at her ankles joined their free hands, pinning her belly also.

Looking up at the chandelier, she had a strange thought. It had not been dusted for a long while, and that was all she could think of. The chandelier had not been dusted, and probably the one in the main hall was the same.

Both of the men holding at her hands simultaneously reached to her neck and with a single rip tore down the top of her basic black dress. They also unleashed the pearls which clicked across the desk top and fell chattering to the wood parquet floor. Then one unsnapped her bra.

"Talk about kinky," said Mrs. Delpheen. "Do you fellows need feathers to get it up?"

The man with the phallic symbol of stone raised it above her head, and to Mrs. Delpheen, her dress half-off down to her waist, the downward thrust of the stone seemed very slow until it rammed into her chest. Not cut, rammed. Like someone had hit her chest with a ball peen hammer that kept going inside, and then she saw very clearly the stone move slowly toward her navel, and it felt like pulleys were ripping her insides out, taking her shoulders into her body, and then she screamed-a wail stifled by a lack of air coming into her. She saw a big grin on the face of the fifth man, pulling the stone around her chest.

"More," he said. "Scream more."

And then the chandeliers didn't matter any more because they were now away, going far away down a long tunnel that became gray, then black, and quickly nothing to worry about any more.

The man with the stone knife saw the fat face become flat and almost waxy, and he knew there would be no more screams of honor to Uctut. He worked quickly, severing the last arteries, and then with a rip he tore the heart out of the body cavity and held it aloft, still pumping bloodily in. his hands. There was no need for the two at the arms to hold on any longer, and they reached behind them under their robes where leather thongs held clay bowls.

Each unsnapped his bowl and waited while the heart pumped violently and then with a small flutter stopped. The man with the stone knife delicately placed the mass of bloody muscle into one upturned bowl. The second bowl went on top with a neat interlocking click.

The men at the ankles turned the lifeless hulk over so that the open chest cavity faced downward over the desk. And the man who had cut out the heart left a typewritten note with its corners carefully smeared with Mrs. Delpheen's blood.

Remo heard about the killing in New York City just as he and Chiun entered Dulles Airport outside Washington. They had gone there, Remo had said, to examine "the scene of the crime" where the congressman had been killed.

"What crime?" Chiun had asked. "Smith said nothing of robbery or deceit, or worse, not paying a worker for his just efforts."

"The killing," Remo had said. "That's what crime."

"Was it not paid for?" Chiun asked.

"The killing was the crime," Remo had said.

"Then every leader of every country is a criminal. No, this is impossible. Emperors cannot be criminals because they make the laws. Those who defy emperors are criminals."

"It's against the law in this country to kill someone," Remo had said.

Chiun had thought a moment, then shook his head.

"Impossible. That would make us criminals, and we most certainly are not. A criminal is someone without our strong standards."

"It's complicated," Remo said. "Take my word for it. It's complicated."

"I do not need your word for it," Chiun had said, and he told a banker from Des Moines, sitting across the aisle from them, that the American way of life was incredibly inscrutable, but if it worked to America's satisfaction, Chiun was not one to complain.

That had been in the plane. Now in the airport Remo heard a pocket radio news report and caught the last words about the second such killing. The afternoon Washington Star had a small story:

BULLETIN

New York (API)-A rich widow was discovered slain in her fashionable home here today in a manner similar to that of the congressman investigating legal abuses by the FBI and CIA. The woman, Mrs. Ramona H. Delpheen, 51, was found by her butler, slumped over her desk, her heart ripped from her body.

Remo paid for the newspaper but returned it to its stack.

"Well," said Chiun, "I await your brilliant plan to go looking for someone, you do not know who, to do something to him, you do not know what, in a place where he may or may not be, but was once."

"I've changed my mind," Remo said, somewhat embarrassed.

"How can you change what you have yet to show?" Chiun asked.

"We're going to New York."

"I like New York," said Chiun. "It has some restaurants that aren't foreign. Of course, the Korean restaurants are not the best, but very good considering how far they are from civilization."

The shuttle flight to New York took less than an hour, the cab ride from the airport twice that.

Chiun made a small comment that they had gone to four cities so far, and perhaps they might try Tacoma. He had not discovered Tacoma, Washington, yet. Remo said Chiun could go back and watch his trunks if he wished. Chiun said there was nothing worth more than seeing what Remo planned to do next. Perhaps he would like to clean a stable.

A uniformed patrolman stood in front of the Delpheen mansion. Remo walked by him with authority. Chiun stopped to chat. He asked the patrolman what he was doing there. The patrolman said there had been a murder committed there the night before. Chiun asked why the patrolman hadn't been there the night before instead.

He did not wait for an answer. The door opened for Remo. A gaunt man in a white jacket and dark pants refused Remo entrance. Chiun muttered in Korean how foolish it was to use doors that were closed to you when the windows in the upper floors were of such easy access and were always open to you. But, he added, the people who used windows usually knew what they were looking for.