Warren Murphy: Holy Terror

As Remo watched, Chiun stood alongside the set, laboriously counting the knobs, and then counting them again, and then leaning over the vented back of the set and peering inside to examine machinery that Remo knew he did not understand. Occasionally he went "hmmmm."

"I should have killed that fat-faced creep," said Remo.

Chiun snorted and continued his inspection.

"You know why I let him live?" Remo asked. "Because I knew this time you were serious, and he was your new employer. And I wouldn't make a hit on your employer."

Chiun looked up, shaking his head sadly. "You are crazy," he said. "Like all white men. I am sick of whites. That girl was in love with me, and that lunatic with the bag of chicken punched her. And here I thought, it was only baseball that was racist. And Smith. And…"

"Screw it. I should have finished that frog. If I ever see him again, I will."

"Typical white thinking. Doing something in such a manner as to cause more harm than good. Do you know that Indians get very upset when Indians die in foreign lands? Particularly rich Indians. And yet you would go ahead, just like that, poof, and kill him. Well, fortunately you will not commit that folly. I have killed him, and in such a way that sloppiness will never be attached to the name of Sinanju."

Chiun folded his arms and stared challengingly at Remo.

"But I just saw him alive. On the television set."

"Nothing ever sinks into the white racist mind. When a hand strikes the right point in the neck, is the person dead?"

"Yes," said Remo.

"No," said Chiun. "It means that the person is going to die. He is not dead yet. It takes time for the brain to be disconnected from the rest of the body. Some blows are fast. Some blows are slower, and death takes longer. Like long enough for him to return home to India, before he dies of bad kidneys."

"I don't believe it," Remo said. "You would have had to make that kind of stroke without his knowing about it."

"And you are a fool. Have you learned nothing? If a man gets a bump, and then nothing happens immediately that day, he assumes it is healed and was nothing to worry about. You can bump into someone openly and inflict that kind of wound. And in two days there will be no pain, and in two months he will be dead. Any fool could learn that. Any fool but you, that is. Remo, you are a disgrace. A pathetic incompetent desecration of the name Sinanju. I saw you last night using a stone on that Frenchman whose family was trained by my family. A disgrace. A fiasco. Rubbish."

"But…"

"That settles it. I cannot leave you at this level of stupidity. More work is needed to bring you to even the lowest level of accomplishment. Much more work. And I am afraid I must be here to supervise it. Such is the burden of the dedicated teacher, who dares to try to train fools to come in out of the rain."

"Chiun," Remo said, a smile beginning to crease his face. "I can't say… I can't…"

But Chiun had changed the channel from the news broadcast of Maharaji Dor to an early morning soap opera, and he raised a hand for silence as he stared at the set.

And Remo was silent, because no one disturbs the Master of Sinanju during his momentary respite of beauty.

"Practice your breathing," Chiun said. "I will get to you later. And then we can discuss our trip to Sinanju. That is, if you and the other racists have not already forgotten your promise."

Remo turned to the door.

"Where are you going?" Chiun asked.

"To rent a submarine," said Remo.