Warren Murphy: Deadly Seeds

In East St. Louis, you could see the heat rising from the cracked sidewalks of Ducal Street, a row of two-story wooden buildings and storefronts, most of them empty. Pete's Pool Parlour had its windows painted green halfway up. It wasn't empty. A very large redblotched face with shiny grease and rheumy black eyes stared over the green paint line. The garbage pail of a face rested dully under an immaculate bright red hat with pompon. Inside, Remo and Chiun saw it had a body, large hairy arms like girders with fur transplants hanging out of a worn leather vest. The hands ended at the denim-covered groin where they occupied themselves with scratching.

"Where's Pete?" asked Remo.

The face did not answer.

"I'm looking for Pete."

"Who are you and dinko?" said the garbage pail of a face.

"I'm the spirit of Christmas Past and this is Mother Goose," said Remo.

"You got a big mouth."

"It's a hot day. Tell me where Pete is, please," said Remo. Chiun examined the strange room. There were green rectangular tables with colored balls. The white ball did not have a number. There were sticks with which young men pushed the white ball into other balls. When certain of these other balls went into holes at the sides of the table, the man hitting the white ball into the colored balls was allowed to continue or, in some cases, collected paper money, which, while not gold, could be used to purchase things. Chiun went over to the table where the most money was changing hands.

Meanwhile, Remo finished his business.

"Just tell me where Pete is."

The hairy hand left the groin to rub thumb against forefinger, indicating money.

"Give me something," said the garbage pail of a face. So Remo gave him a shattered collarbone and, true to his word, the garbage pail of a face told him that Pete was behind the cash register and then he passed out from the pain. Remo nudged the man's face with his shoe. There was a grease spot on the floor.

Pete was holding a weapon behind the cash register when Remo got there.

"Hi, I'd like to speak to you privately," said Remo.

"I saw what you did there. Just stay where you are."

Remo's right hand fluttered with his fingers almost braiding themselves. Pete's eyes followed the hand for a fraction of an instant. Which they were supposed to do. In that moment, just as the eyes moved, Remo's left hand was behind the counter in simultaneous flow, thumb into metacarpals, pressuring the nerves into a gel of compressed bone. The gun dropped on a box of pool chalk. Pete's eyes teared. A crazy pain-racked smile came across his otherwise bland face.

"Wow, that smarts," Pete said.

A lounger whiling away his twenties and thirties would have seen only the thin man with the thick wrists go over to Pete and walk with him to a back room, holding Pete's arm in some sort of friendly embrace. A lounger, however, would have been more interested in the strange elderly Oriental with the funny robes.

Waco Boy Childers was playing Charlie Dusset for a hundred dollars a game and no one was talking, excepting that funny Oriental fella. He wanted to know the rules of the game.

Waco Boy lowered his stick and sighed.

"Pops, I was shooting," said Waco Boy down to the old squint of a gook. "People do not talk while I am shooting."

"Do you perform so well that it robs others of breath?" asked Chiun.

"Sometimes. If they got enough money on it."

This brought laughs.

"Like, watch Charlie Dusset," said Waco Boy. Chiun cackled and both Waco Boy and Charlie asked what he was laughing about.

"Funny names. Your names are so funny. 'Dusset.' 'Waco Boy.' You have such funny names," and Chiun's laughter was infectious for those crowding around the table laughed also, except Waco Boy and Charlie Dusset.

"Yeah? What's your name, feller?" said Waco Boy.

And Chiun told them his name, but in Korean. They did not understand.

"I think that's funny," said Waco Boy.

"Fools usually do," said Chiun and this time even Charlie Dusset laughed.

"You want to put your money where your mouth is?" said Waco Boy. He set his hand bridge on the green felt top and with a smooth-honed stroke put away the seven ball in the side pocket, the eight ball on a bank the length of the table, which left the cue ball right behind the nine at a corner pocket. He put the yellow nine away with a short stroke that left the cue ball dead where it hit. Charlie Dusset paid out with bis last bill.

"I presume you wish me to gamble?" said Chiun.

"You presumes correctly."

"On the outcome of this game?"

"Correct," said Waco Boy.

"I do not gamble," said Chiun. "Gambling makes a person weak. It robs him of his self-worth, for a man who places his fate in luck instead of in his own skills surrenders his well-being to the whims of fortune."

"You're just a talker then?"

"I did not say that."

Waco Boy grabbed a roll of bills out of his pockets and threw them on the green felt table. "Put up or shut up."

"Do you have gold?" said Chiun.

"I thought you didn't gamble," said Waco Boy.

"Defeating you in any contest of skill is not gambling," said Chiun and this remark almost leveled Charlie Dusset with laughter.

"I got a gold watch," said Waco Boy and before he could get it off his wrist, the long fingernails of the Oriental had it off and then back on while Waco Boy's stubby fingers seemed to grub hopelessly.

"It is not gold," said Chiun. "But since I have nothing else to do at this moment, I shall play you for that paper. This is gold."

From his kimono, Chiun took out a large thick coin, shiny and yellow. And he put it on the edge of the table. But the people around allowed they didn't know if it were real gold.

"It is an English Victoria, accepted the whole world over."

And the folks around the table allowed it sure was a fine-looking coin and someone said he had read about British Victorias and they were sure worth a lot of money. But Waco Boy said as he didn't quite know if he wanted to risk $758 against a single coin, no matter how much it was worth.

Chiun added another coin.

"Or even two," said Waco Boy. "Maybe a hundred against one of them."

"I will offer two against your paper of what you think is a hundred valuation."

"Better watch out, Mister," said Charlie Dusset. "Waco Boy's the best in the whole state. All Missouri."

"All of Missouri?" said Chiun, clasping a long delicate hand to his chest. "Next you will tell me he is the best in all America and then the continent."

"He's pretty good, Mister," said Charlie Dusset. "He cleaned me out."

"Ah, what formidableness. Nevertheless, I will take my poor chances."

"You want to break?" asked Waco Boy.

"What is break?"

"Taking the first shot."

"I see. And how is this game won? What are the rules?"

"You take this cue stick and you hit the white ball into first the one ball and you knock that in. Then the two and so on until the nine. When you get the nine you win."

"I see," said Chiun. "And what if the nine should go in on the first stroke?"

"You win."

"I see," said Chiun as Waco Boy placed the nine balls in a diamond formation at the other end of the table. And Chiun asked to hold the balls to see what they felt like and Waco Boy rolled him one and he lifted it and asked to see another, but Waco Boy said they were all identical. To this, Chiun answered no, they were not all identical. The blue one was not as perfectly round as the orange one and the green one was heavier than all the rest and although those around him laughed, Chiun persisted in feeling every one of the balls, and had they noticed that when he rolled them back they stopped on the table exactly where they had been in the rack, they might have expected what would happen next.