Warren Murphy: Mafia Fix

The paper fluttered down, sloshing from side to side. When it was four feet from the floor, it stopped, speared on Remo's fingertips.

Remo pulled the torn paper off his fingertips and won a smile from Chiun. "Good," the old Oriental said, the smiling creasing the parchment texture of his face. "Now again."

This time Chiun crumpled the paper slightly and reached up on tiptoes before letting it drop and calling "go." The paper dropped faster, with less side-to-side movement. It dropped straight to the floor and lay there on the nylon carpet like an unanswered accusation.

Chiun stared angrily at Remo. "Why?" he said.

Remo was laughing. "I can't help it, Chiun. You look so damn silly standing up there. I was thinking you'd look terrific if I had you sprayed gold and put you on my mantel. Then I had to laugh. People do, you know."

"I am well aware," Chiun said in his clipped, precise Oriental tones, "that mankind is the only species that laughs. Mankind is also the only species that dies from lack of conditioning. It may happen to you, Remo, if you do not practice. This floater stroke is very important and very useful, but it must be done correctly."

And for the twentieth time on the cruise aboard the S. S. Atlantica, Remo heard the explanation of the floater stroke. How it depended for its effectiveness on the mass of the victim or the object to be struck. That there was no energy loss between the time the stroke was un-cocked and impact. But that if the object were missed, the force could easily dislocate the striker's shoulder.

"Chiun," Remo had said, "I know seventy-eight different strokes. I know strokes with the finger and the toes, with the hands, knuckles, feet, elbows, and knees and even with my hipbones. What the hell do I need another one for?"

"Because you must be perfect. After all, are you not Shiva, the Destroyer?" and Chiun had cackled, as he had so often since they had returned from China on a mission for the President during which Remo was thought to be the reincarnation of one of the Hindu gods, Chiun chuckled about it only when he talked to Remo. He laughed to no one else, for a very simple reason. He believed the story. Remo Williams was Shiva the Destroyer.

But he was also Chiun's pupil and now Chiun tore another piece of paper from the notebook, held it above his head, released it, and softly called, "go."

The paper fluttered down gently, and then it was not one sheet of paper anymore, it was two, sliced in half lengthwise by a chop from the hand of Remo Williams.

It would have been a very impressive display if anyone had seen it. But their suite of cabins was on the very top deck of the Atlantica. Outside their glass door and porthole windows, the deck had been sealed off as a private verandah, and there was only the sea.

Below the deck their cabins were on was another deck and below that another deck, and then another and another, until you were down in the bowels of the ship, and there were no more portholes because you were right at the waterline. There were cabins down there too except the furniture was not walnut, it was chipped paint steel and the floors had no carpet, they had only linoleum tile. And in the stern of the ship, in the cheapest, rockiest cabin the Atlantica had to offer, was Dr. Harold W. Smith, head of CURE, one of the several most powerful men in the world.

He lay in his hard bed trying desperately to focus his eyes on a spot in the ceiling until his stomach returned to normal. He had a theory that if he could somehow lock his eyes onto the spot, and then move when the spot moved, it would reduce the feeling of motion and he might survive.

But down that deep in a ship, the motion is not only one of rocking. The ship slides from side to side as well. It slid then and the spot went port. Dr. Smith went starboard and he kept going starboard until he rolled over onto his stomach and was reaching desperately for the waste paper basket.

Damn that Remo Williams. Sometimes Dr. Smith wondered if winning the war against crime was really worth having to put up with him.

Dr. Smith had contacted Remo in Nassau, where his cruise ship had tied up, and told Remo he should fly back to the states immediately for reassignment. Remo had refused. He told Dr. Smith he had made the finals of the dancing contest on board the ship and so he would have to cruise back or miss his chance at the gold cup. Why didn't Dr. Smith fly down and sail back with him, Remo suggested.

"Well have plenty of time then to talk about the new assignment," Remo said.

"I don't have the time to go sailing around the world with you," Smith had said.

"Then I won't tell you what happened to your old buddy Hopkins and his plan to blackmail CURE. You'll find out about it someday when you get a secret letter in the mail asking you for forty-three billion dollars in ones."

"Very funny," Smith said. "I know what happened to Hopkins. I got a report."

"Oh, balls. Well, come on down anyway and I'll tell you what I did to Howard Hughes," Remo said. He had insisted and importuned and become stubborn, and finally, after he guaranteed that he would get Smith a good cabin, Smith had agreed.

And now here he was, vomiting up his youth and his future, and hating Remo Williams more each minute.

But Harold W. Smith had not gotten where he was by shirking duty. He had not been tapped to head CURE, the government's secret crime-fighting agency, because he lacked character. So he slowly got to his feet and, staggering slightly, moved across the room to take a black suitcase out of his closet. It was made of cardboard and it had no travel stickers on it. Then, carefully locking his door behind him, he began the walk up five decks to Remo Williams' suite of cabins.

It was after 3 a.m. and the ship had gone to sleep. He met no one on the stairs or in the corridors. But Remo Williams was not in his room.

The decks were more deserted than the corridors now. It was wet and raw out on the decks and the wind swirled knifingly up out of the sea, impelling a fine mist across the ship and chilling the bones of anyone who stood there.

But Remo Williams was not cold. He looked carefully around the small wall that fenced off his private section of deck from the rest of the ship. There was no one in sight, which was as it should be.

Under his hands, Remo felt the heavy oaken top of the deck rail. It was five inches across, curved and wet from the mist of the sea. Remo kicked off his canvas slippers and hopped up unto the rail. He stood there for a moment, balanced precariously, standing straight up, seventy-five feet above the water, as he absorbed the ocean's roll into his senses and let the muscles of his legs and nerves of his bare feet catch the hard rocking rhythms of the ship's movement. Then he began to run, out around his verandah wall; then down the ship, balanced along the top of the deck railing. The ship rocked and rolled and slipped from side to side, but Remo ran rapidly in a world of his own.

He ran a few steps straight forward, one leg after another, his bare feet so quickly removed from the wet polished railing that they had no time to slip.

And then in full motion, he would turn his body until he was skittering sideways, one leg crossing over in front of the other, then behind. As he ran, he looked out at the sea and he realized why sailors had a special arrogance, because here, away from land, in the middle of an ink-cold sea, man challenged God, and only the arrogant could achieve victory.

Remo had now reached the stern of the ship and he slowed to make sure no one had ventured out onto the deck. When he saw it was clear, he picked up his speed and continued racing around the oak railing, making the turn and heading back up toward the bow as fast as he could move. He glanced below him into the glass-enclosed swimming pool.