Warren Murphy: Murder's Shield

CHAPTER SIX

A house suitable for a New York City racketeer had been purchased for Remo. It was a one-family home, upper middle class Queens. Remo picked up Chiun at the airport along with Chiun's luggage, eight steamer trunks, five large valises and six wooden cartons.

"I was informed we would be moving into a home so I brought a small change of clothes," Chiun had said, insisting that one of the wooden cartons go with them in the cab. Three cabs followed with Chiun's small change of clothes.

The carton, Remo knew, was the television tape machine that had been fitted with a giant cadmium battery in order to tape Chiun's favourite shows while he was en route from Texas. He would not leave Texas knowing that he would miss "As the Planet Revolves" and "Dr. Lawrence Walters, Psychiatrist at Large."

Remo sat crunched between carton and door in the back of the cab. He gave Chiun a baleful look.

"It is possible that one of the following chariots would get lost and then a moment of beauty would be gone from me forever, a poor shallow moment for a desert of a life," Chiun explained.

"You've been told, Chiun, we can buy copies of the damned shows."

"I have been told many things in my life. What I can touch, I believe," said Chiun, patting the crate that wedged Remo uncomfortably against the side of the cab door. Remo looked over the crate and saw Chiun had even less room proportionately, but was nevertheless sitting comfortably, his body collapsed into an even narrower form.

Then Remo disclosed what was worrying him.

"I picked up a trace when I shouldn't this afternoon in New York City," he said, referring to the blood on his shoe. Chiun did not have to be told about blood or shoe. "Trace" was the signal that a blow was improperly delivered, not so badly that it failed to do its job but badly enough to indicate that precision was going. It was a sign that technique was slipping and any careful artisan took it seriously.

"Anger," Chiun said. "Anger will do that."

"I wasn't angry. I was working four simultaneously. I didn't know them."

"Anger is a poison that spreads throughout a life. You did not have to be angry at that moment. Anger robs your balance. Only dedication and harmony can restore it."

"Yes, I was angry. I am still angry."

"Then be prepared for traces. After traces come accidents. And after accidents, misses. And after misses, comes loss. And for us, loss is…" Chiun did not finish the sentence.

"We will work on harmony, little father," Remo said. "But I'm still angry."

The taxi caravan drove down a tree-lined street with neat brick and shingle homes, cars in driveways, children playing on the clean sidewalks. When the cab stopped in front of the house, Remo saw the nameplate already had been placed on the heavy iron gate that guarded the flagstone walk to the house. "Remo Bednick." So that's who he would be this trip. Remo Bednick.

He supervised the unloading while keeping the attaché cases to himself. Chiun's television was turned on immediately and Remo began his harmony exercises, sitting in a full lotus, imagining himself first as matter, then as a spirit, then as a spirit combined with all matter and all spirit. When he eased back into the reality of his surrounding, a neat, furnished home, the anger was still there but it was distant. Like someone else's anger.

He brought the attaché cases downstairs to store the money in the safest hiding place in any house. The refrigerator. When he swung open the door, he saw the space was taken.

Five crimson robes, folded neatly, filled the shelves of the refrigerator. The temperature control was turned to freezing. Chiun was upstairs learning for the 287th time that year that Wayne Hampton's second wife, who had run away with Bruce Cabot, director of Internal Security for Malgar Corporation, was discovering that she really loved her daughter, May Sue Lippincott, and that the two of them might indeed love the same man, Vance Masters, leading authority on heart diseases who was secretly suffering from a disease whose cure he was working on. Dr. Masters did not know he had the disease. He had been about to be informed last September and was still about to be informed as of yesterday.

Chiun could not be torn away from the show; so Remo could not insist Chiun find another place for the crimson robes. It had to be a cool place because the shoddy Korean dye of which Chiun was so proud tended to run.

Remo thought a moment, then remembered the attic. There was a toy chest there. Blue robes filled the toy chest. The basement was hung like a carnival with yellow and orange robes.

Remo took the attaché cases up to Chiun's room. Chiun was in a green robe, entranced that Mary Sue Lippincott was now going to tell Dr. Masters he had contracted the dreaded disease he was trying to cure.

Remo waited silently until a woman appeared on the screen to tell about her exciting new washday discovery. For this discovery, she received love from her husband, affection from her son, the respect and admiration of neighbours, and a general feeling of mental health for herself. All because of new lemon-activated Brah.

Remo unlocked the cases and dumped the money onto the floor around Chiun.

"Keep an eye on this," he said.

"For me?" Chiun asked.

"No. Operating money."

"That is much money," Chiun said. "An emperor's fortune."

"We could take it and run, Chiun. Who'd stop us? This would support your village for ten generations. A hundred generations."

Remo smiled. Chiun shook his head.

"Should I leave with this fortune, I would be robbing the future of Sinanju. I would be robbing my own house of Sinanju, for then our centuries of service would be stained by theft. Generations hence might lose employment because of that."

The village of Sinanju in Korea, as Remo knew, had no crops because of the soil, had poor fishing and no industry, and survived only because for hundreds of years, each Master of Sinanju hired himself out as an assassin or instructor of assassins. The poor of the village lived off the deadly skills of each master.

"A million dollars, Chiun, would last a hundred generations the way you people spend money."

Chiun shook his head again. "We do not know money. We know the martial arts. And should it last a hundred generations, where would the hundred and first find sustenance?"

"You really worry about the future, don't you, little father?"

"When one is responsible for it, one worries. Do you now walk blind because of your anger?" Chiun held up a typewritten folded note that had been stuffed into the money.

"Oh," said Remo.

"Oh," said Chiun. "Oh, the note. Oh, the way the man walked. Oh, the weapon. Oh, the blow. Oh, the life. Oh."

Remo read the note as Mary Sue Lippincott returned to the screen. Surprise, surprise, she was going to tell Dr. Masters of his disease.

The note was from Smith. Typed himself, undoubtedly, because of the typographical errors and because it was not the kind of note the director of a research sanatorium would dictate to a secretary.

Notes on Bribery

The mark of an amateur is an excessive bribe. Better to come in low than high. When you want something, then raise the offer. Bribery is a bargaining medium.

A general weekly pad for a precinct runs $200 to the captain, $75 to lieutenants, $25 to sergeants and $15 to patrolmen.

Begin small and upgrade. Let the police's imaginations work.

See if you can get to inspectors with $5,000. Lay off the chief and the commissioner because you might get arrested there. If they are taking, it filters up from all the ranks.

Buy yourself a Cadillac or a Lincoln from a local dealer and pay in cash. Tip excessively in restaurants. Carry a heavy roll. Good hunting. Destroy the note.

Remo shredded the note in his left hand.