Warren Murphy - Death Check

"I demand you tell Father Boyle how to win. He can use your help. Anyone who believes in God can use all the help he can get. Go ahead. Right now. No protest. There are two possible ways he can win. I am assuming you know chess. Father Boyle does not. Tell him how."

It was the three months of peak that got to Remo, the three months of staying where he should not have stayed mentally or physically. That and Brewster Forum and these lunatics and being told that he must arrange for the deaths of these harmless twits, just because their brilliance might lead them to a wrong corridor.

So Remo made a mistake. Even before he knew what he was doing, he said:

"There are three ways Father Boyle can beat you. The first two require an error on your part. But the third he can do alone. His knight to your Rook 3, uncovering check by the queen. It's a smothered mate in three."

Remo had spoken softly, almost like the tender point of a sermon. At first Ratchett was going to laugh, then his face became blank. It was obvious he had not seen the move. And as the move became apparent to others in the audience there were little sounds. And Father Boyle began to laugh, a full hearty laugh, and others laughed with him, and Ratchett became white. White hot. If man could become hate, Dr. James Ratchett was hate.

Remo did not laugh, because he knew he should be spanked. Lectures were for grownups and beatings were for men. But spankings were for little boys who took up prideful challenges that could so easily get them killed. Stupid. Stupid, Remo thought. You entered as a dumb cop and lest anyone spot you as a real danger by some accident, you went out of your way to let them know that maybe you weren't so dumb. A cop, all right, but a cop to be watched. The greenest rookie wouldn't do something that stupid. Give away surprise and you give away your life. How the lecture had been drilled into him, and how logical it was:

"You must isolate what you wish to do. Most personal assaults fail because they attempt to do too much, not the least of which is to gain respect from your target." Those were the words of Chiun, the instructor.

"That's stupid," Rerno had answered. "No one would do that."

"Most people do," said Chiun quietly. "They show off for their victim. This is because they wish not so much to harm the other person as to force the other to recognize their superiority. You see it even among prize fighters. How foolish.

"If you learn no other lesson, learn this one, and it will do more to keep you alive than any other. The most dangerous man is the man who does not appear dangerous. Say it after me."

"Okay," said Remo, imitating the squeaky sing-song of the aged Korean. "The most dangerous man is the man who does not appear dangerous. Say it after me."

"Ooooh," said Chiun, clutching his chest. "Ooooh." And Remo had jumped to his feet from the little cushions they sat on and moved to steady the elderly man.

"Set me down, please. Please. On my back." Chiun groaned again and Remo carefully placed his hands under Chiun's arms and slowly placed the white frosted head on a pillow.

"I do not look dangerous now," said Chiun, in obvious pain.

"No, you do not," Remo said tenderly.

"Good," said Chiun, driving a finger into the back of Remo's rib cage, rendering him a helpless cripple on the floor. It had felt like pliers tearing his lower rib from his spinal column, causing such pain that Remo was unable to cry out or even to groan.

When the eternity of the moment was over and Remo could scream, then breathe, and then lie quivering, Chiun had said: "I cause you this pain so that you should remember. Never be dangerous in the eyes of men whom you plan to combat. Never. I cause you pain because I love you. Yes. Love. True love is doing what is good for a person. False love is doing only that which causes that person to love you. The love I have for you is shown in this pain that I give you. The pain is your lesson, best learned."

When Remo could speak, but not yet get up, he said:

"You yellow dink bastard shit. Stop the pain."

"I love you too much to stop the pain."

"You no good scumbag. Stop the pain."

"No, my son."

Then Remo went for his emotional lungs. "You look like a Chinaman." He knew Chiun hated the Chinese almost as much as he hated the people in the next village.

"You shall not tempt me to rob you of your lesson. I have given too much to you to be robbed of the gift. You see, never again can I pretend this weakness and catch you off guard. I have, in a small way, given you a piece of my future, a piece of my life. I have given to you the knowledge that I am dangerous."

"I always knew you were dangerous, you little yellow China bastard."

"Ah, but not in that way."

"Okay, okay. I'm sorry. I've learned. Stop the pain, please."

"True love does not allow it."

"Hate me then," said Remo. "For heaven's sake, hate me and stop the fucking pain."

"No. A gift is a gift."

"Your generosity will kill me, you creepy, fish-eating fuck. When does the pain stop?"

"All your days you may have it. It is a lifelong gift. Ribs can be like that."

The pain lessened, but continued from day to day, and from day to day, Remo begged Chiun to do what he must to stop it. Every night, he would interrupt Chiun's sleep to tell him. And in the second week, Chiun who could endure almost anything but the loss of sleep, succumbed.

Remo had nudged him in the very dark predawn. "It still hurts me, you bastard."

And wearily, Chiun sat up from his mat, and told Remo: "I am sorry, my son. But I do not love you this much. I must sleep." And he pressed his fingers on the base of Remo's spine, working his way to the rib of pain and then with a slap at the pain, the pain was gone and Remo felt exquisite relief that almost brought tears to his eyes.

"Thank you. Thank you," he said.

And Chiun had said: "I am sorry, my son. I am sorry I had to do that. But I would not live much longer without my sleep. I am an old man. And I only love you with a part of my life. Not all of it." He lay down on his mat and before he passed back into slumber, he said, "Forgive me."

And Remo had forgiven with a laugh. But standing now over the chess board, he would not forgive himself. And he realized that he had been unworthy of the gift that Chiun had given him. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid, Remo thought. You stupid, idiotic bastard. You entered this room a zero, and now you're part of the goddam dynamics of the place, with friends and enemies, and it's just going to be that much tougher to perform if the order comes to waste them.

CHAPTER NINE

The man once known as Dr. Hans Frichtmann had seen the move. Nothing new. Nothing innovative. Rather standard. Nothing that couldn't be learned. Yet, for its purpose and in context, brilliant. They hadn't sent a McCarthy this time. Did they suspect that McCarthy was not the victim of an accidental overdose, that he was murdered?

This was the real thing this time. Could they know about him and his daughter? Perhaps, but doubtful. More likely, they knew about McCarthy as a murder victim. Yet, where were the legions of men in shined shoes and clean shirts and schoolboy honest complexions? There would certainly be all that for a full crackdown.

Well, perhaps not. Maybe this Remo Pelham person was the best they had. It was strange that he had somehow evaded the men who met him on the ferryboat. Dr. Hans Frichtmann would have to deal with him. The sooner the better.

He waited until everyone had left the hall, then went to Ratchett's home. Ratchett had been the first to leave, huffing out indignantly.

He walked awhile with his daughter, up the tree-graced lane and over the sweetly-whistling brook to Ratchett's house, that white plastered obscenity shaped like an egg, that new design that only an American could call art. Only an American or a Frenchman. How wise it had been on everyone's part to put it behind a knoll, invisible to sensitive eyes.