Child's Play td-23 Read online

  "The worst," Remo agreed.

  "A no-good, rotten, reneging bastard prick."

  "I'd recognize myself anywhere." Remo jammed the lock of the closet door for good measure.

  In the living room, Chiun said, "That woman is a liar."

  "Why? What did she say to us?"

  "She said these were very valuable coins. But there are many that are more valuable. Doubloons, pieces of eight, they are all worth more than these. Still, these are not bad."

  "Chiun, stop that, will you please?"

  In the hallway outside Sashur's apartment, Remo and Chiun were met by two overweight middle-aged men puffing down the hall from the elevator.

  "Kaufperson," one panted. "Do you know where her apartment is?"

  "Sure. Why?" said Remo.

  "Police business, buddy," said the other man, his chest heaving from the strain of the twenty-foot run from the elevator.

  Remo pointed to the door. "That's her apartment."

  The two men ran past him.

  "But you won't find her there," Remo said.

  They stopped at the door.

  "Why not?"

  "I saw her leaving five minutes ago. She had a suitcase with her."

  "Did she say where she was going?"

  "She did as a matter of fact," Remo said. "I live just down the hall there. She came in to borrow some shoe polish. She's got this thing about shiny shoes. Uses only Kiwi and she was-"

  "Get to it, man. Where was she going?"

  "She said she was flying to Spokane, Washington. To see her folks. Old Mother and Father Kaufperson and all the little Kaufpeople."

  "We better call the captain," one detective said. The heaving of his chest was beginning to subside.

  "C'mon, fellas, why don't you tell me what this is all about. Maybe I can help," Remo said.

  "Did you see the news tonight?"

  "No," said Remo.

  "No," said Chiun. "But I saw 'As the Planet Revolves'. It was very good today. Rad Rex is getting better and better since I have taught him how to move."

  The two detectives glanced at each other. "Anyway on the news there was this story about this general who said there were two assassins around from the CIA. A white guy and an Oriental. And Kaufperson called and said they were coming after her. We're here to protect her."

  "I guess she decided to run away," Remo said. "A white man and an Oriental, you say?"

  "Right."

  "We haven't seen anybody like that around here, have we?"

  "No," said Chiun. "I have seen no Oriental and you have seen no white man."

  "Let's go, Fred. We better call the captain."

  "Yeah."

  The two detectives ran back toward the elevator, while Remo and Chiun went to the exit door leading to the stairwell.

  As he went into the doorway, Remo leaned back into the hall. "A white man and an Oriental, you say?"

  "Yeah," said the one called Fred, impatiently jabbing the elevator button again.

  "You heard about them on the news?" said Remo.

  "Right, right."

  "If we see them, we'll be sure to call you."

  "Thanks."

  Remo and Chiun went up to the roof, then to an adjoining building and down the stairs.

  They met a second pair from the world of officialdom outside that building.

  "Watch this, Chiun," said Remo with a smile.

  Remo approached the two men, who wore trenchcoats and snap-brim hats.

  "If you're looking for Sashur Kaufperson, she's gone to Spokane, Washington," Remo said.

  The older of the two men turned toward Remo. "Strange you should ask, mister," he said. His partner backed away from him, moving off to Remo's right side.

  "Why strange?" said Remo, looking over his shoulder and winking at Chiun, who shook his head sadly.

  "Because we're not looking for her. We're looking for you."

  The agent pulled his hand from his trenchcoat pocket. In it was an automatic pistol. He pointed it at Remo at exactly the same instant that his partner's gun was pointed at Chiun,

  "What happened, Remo?" asked Chiun.

  "I don't know. I thought I was going good."

  "That'll be enough talk," said the agent covering Remo. "You two are under arrest. You're coming with us."

  "A little problem there," Remo said.

  "Yes. What's that?"

  "I don't want to."

  "You don't have much choice," the agent said. He nodded toward his gun.

  "True," said Remo. "Have I ever shown you the golden triangle?"

  "Don't try bribing us."

  His partner added angrily, "Don't you know that in fifty years no FBI man has ever been bribed?"

  "I didn't know that. Fifty years?"

  "Yes. Fifty years."

  "Well, I wouldn't try to bribe you. I just want you to watch. You see, it's all in the feet."

  Remo looked down at his feet and crossed his right foot over his left foot at the ankles. "That's the starting position," he said.

  "Come on, pal. You're going with us."

  "Wait. I'm not done. How am I doing, Little Father?"

  "For a fool playing foolish games, you are doing very well."

  "Now from this point of the crossed feet, the spin is next," Remo said.

  He spun on his feet, turning his body in a wide semi-circle. The agent with his gun on Remo followed the lower half of Remo's body, gun aimed at Remo's midsection. Then Remo moved at the waist. As the lower half of his body finished the semi-circular movement, the top half of his body kept twisting around, then moved forward toward the agent.

  One moment, the agent had the gun; the next he had an empty hand, and Remo had recrossed his feet, spun again and was gone.

  "Where…?"

  "Behind you, Harry," called his partner.

  "It's a mistake," said Remo, "to do it fast. Slow is the key. Slow, sure, precision." As Harry turned toward Remo behind him, Remo went a third time into the spin. The legs rotated, the upper body moved even farther through the turn, dipped low, moved forward and Harry's partner felt, rather than saw, the pistol disappear from his hand, and then Remo was walking off toward Chiun, both guns in his hands.

  "Ridiculous," said Chiun. "You take a great secret from the ages of Sinanju and play with it on a street corner like a toy."

  "Yeah, but it was good practice," said Remo. "In case I ever come up against anybody good."

  "Hey you two," the two FBI agents called. "Come back here and give us our guns."

  "Give them back their guns, Remo. They probably have to pay for them themselves."

  "Good thinking, Chiun. Here." Remo pulled the clips from the automatics and dropped the weapons into a waist-high litter basket on a utility pole and the clips through a sewer grating.

  Behind them, they heard the agents running. But by the time the FBI men had retrieved their weapons, Remo and Chiun were gone, down into a subway entrance, where Remo stopped to buy the bulldog edition of a morning paper at the newsstand.

  He opened it to page three and was confronted with pen and ink sketches of "Two Secret Agents Hunted as Assassins?"

  "Next you will tell me that is supposed to be me?" said Chiun.

  "None other."

  "Hah. Where is the joy? The love? The wisdom? The true inner beauty?"

  "Shhhh, I'm reading. This general says we're probably assassins for some secret organization. The paper says it's the CIA."

  "Well, see, there is some good to be found in everything. Even though that picture looks nothing like me, it is good that Sinanju is at last getting some recognition."

  "That ninny general held a press conference to talk about this."

  "A press conference." Chiun mused a moment. "It is a good idea. Think of the work we could get, Remo, if others knew more of us and our availability."

  "Yeah, but this general blamed Kaufmann's death on us."

  "Who?" said Chiun.

  "Kaufmann. The guy at the Army post."
r />   "But he was killed by gun shots."

  "Right," said Remo.

  "Don't they know that we would not use bullets?" Chiun's voice explored the depths of outrage.

  "Guess not."

  "That is a terrible thing that general did," said Chiun. "Some may see this and believe it."

  Remo and Chiun walked up the steps leading to the street on the other side of the subway platform.

  "This makes things tough," Remo said.

  "When things get tough, the tough get things."

  "What?" said Remo, folding up the paper.

  "It is something like that. I heard your president say it. 'When things get tough, the tough get things.'"

  "Yeah. Well, we've got a problem. Those pictures in the paper. Exposure by that nit general. We're going to have a goddam posse of bounty hunters after us next."

  "Do not worry. No one will recognize me. Not from that drawing, which is not at all like me."

  "And me?" asked Remo.

  "You have no problem either," said Chiun.

  "No? Why not?"

  "All you whites look alike. Who can tell you from anybody else?"

  CHAPTER TEN

  "You're doing wonderfully, Smitty. Have you ever thought of taking an early retirement?"

  "Now, Remo…"

  " 'Now, Remo,' my ass. Yesterday, the Justice Department sent out a bulletin on us. Now, the general. All night we've been on television and in the papers. When do you have us booked for 'The David Susskind Show'? Why are you telling me not to worry? What the hell's gotten into you?"

  "The pictures don't look anything like you," said Smith. "And frankly, I misjudged. I didn't think that General Haupt would fight back."

  "Well, I've got news for you. General Haupt has brought great unhappiness into my life. I'm going to bring some unhappiness into his. First chance I get."

  "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Smith said blandly. "The first thing is the kids. Have you found out anything?"

  "Warner Pell. It was his plan."

  "Then why did one of his own children kill him?" Smith asked.

  "Well, Pell had this woman in it with him. Sashur Kaufperson. When the heat got put on, he was going to hand her up, and she convinced one of the kids to splat him."

  "What kind of name is Kaufperson?"

  "It's got one N. It's German. Two N's are Jewish."

  "That's not what I mean. I never heard a name like Kaufperson."

  "It used to be Kaufmann. Her husband was one of the witnesses that got zapped."

  "Where is she now?"

  "I've got her under lock and key. Don't worry about it."

  "All right," Smith said. "Stay where you are. I'll get back to you."

  "You might just sky-write the message," said Remo. "Now that everybody knows about us, secrecy isn't important anymore."

  "I will call you," Smith said coldly and hung up.

  Remo dropped the phone into a waste basket and turned toward Chiun, who was unrolling his sleeping mat in the center of the floor.

  "Remo, please move that couch away."

  "It's not in your way. You've got enough room to lay down a field of corn."

  "Its presence intrudes upon my thoughts," said Chiun. "Please move it."

  "Move it yourself. That's laborers' work."

  "Hold. Hold. Are we not co-equal partners by order of Emperor Smith?"

  "Chiun, he's not an emperor. For the thousandth time."

  "The House of Sinanju has worked for emperors for centuries. He contracts with us; he is an emperor." Satisfied with the logic of this, Chiun demanded again: "Answer. We are coequal partners?"

  "Why does our being co-equal partners wind up with my having to move the furniture."

  "It is share and share alike," Chiun said. "I am preparing my bed. That is my share. You move the furniture. That is your share."

  "Right," said Remo. "Share and share alike. You go to sleep, and I move furniture. Okay. Got any pianos you want carried downstairs?" He bent over the edge of the couch and put his hands on the top of the arm. He slid the sofa back and forth to get a sense of its mass and its balance. "Move furniture," he mumbled. "Find out who's doing the killing. Find out who's behind the kids. Get my picture on television. Take out the garbage. Get rid of the bodies. I don't mind telling you that I'm getting tired of all this."

  He pressed down on the arm of the couch with both hands, applying slightly more pressure with his right palm. The end of the couch tilted up into the air and Remo gave it a push. On its two closest legs, the couch skidded across the floor, like the prow of a speedboat cutting through waves. It skidded past a chair, then the parting extra pressure of Remo's right hand caused the couch to veer around the chair. It moved onward toward the wall. It slowed. Its front end lowered.

  It dropped and stopped an inch from the wall, its left arm exactly parallel to the wall.

  "Games. Always games you must play," said Chiun, smoothing out his mat.

  "Furniture moving's no game," Remo said. "From now on, move your own couches."

  "I will. I will. From now on, I will move the couches. You take care of the chairs. That is coequal, right? Therefore, please move that chair. It…"

  "I know, it intrudes upon your thoughts."

  Remo lifted the chair in his arms and tossed it across the room. It landed solidly on the back of the couch and rested there.

  "You, Smitty, this job-you're all getting under my craw."

  "That is good. Dissatisfaction with one's lot shows that one is coming of age and is no longer a child. Think, Remo," Chiun said with sudden glee. "One day, instead of being a stupid, wilful, stubborn, insignificant child…"

  "Yeah."

  "You will be a stupid, wilful, stubborn, insignificant man. Some things one never outgrows." Chiun giggled as he delivered this last, and stretched himself out on the woven grass mat. "Heh, heh," he mumbled to himself. "Some things one never outgrows. Heh, heh."

  Remo looked around the room. He saw the telephone in the wastepaper basket and put it back onto the hook.

  "I'm putting the phone back on the hook," he said.

  "What you do with your playthings is no concern of mine."

  "Smith is supposed to call," Remo said. "He may call late."

  "Tell him I am sleeping."

  "He won't be calling for you. But won't the ring wake you up?"

  "Not if I do not choose to let it."

  "Hmmmpppph" Remo said.

  "HnnnnnnWckTckk" responded Chrun, snoring deeply already.

  Remo turned the bell of the telephone up to loud and wished it could go louder.

  "Hnnnnnnkkkkkkkk."

  Rerno lay down on the couch, his head jammed against the chair.

  "HnnnnnnrikkkkkkTc." Chiun's snoring reverberated through the room. The Venetian blinds seemed to vibrate from the air disturbances with little whirring sounds, like saxophone reeds.

  When the telephone rang, it rang with a piercing blast. Remo jumped up on the couch, exploded from sleep by the clarion screech.

  "Hnnnnnnk'kk'kkk." Chiun snored.

  "Braawwwwkkkk." The phone rang.

  "Hnnnnnkkkkkk."

  "Braaawwwww."

  "HnnnnnnnnnKkKkkkk."

  Fugue for Ma Bell and Adenoids. But Chiun seemed to be winning. Remo answered the phone.

  "It's okay now. My wife is out."

  "Remo?"

  "Of course, Remo."

  "No go with Warner Pell," Smith said.

  "What do you mean no go?"

  "He wasn't running the operation."

  "Why not?" Remo asked.

  "His total worth in the world was $19,000. Hardly what you'd expect for the head of a multimillion-dollar hit machine."

  "How… ?" Remo started to ask, and then changed his mind. He knew how. Smith and his computers and his inputs and his outputs and his grain movements and his shipping records and his studies of mass movements of money and his files on everybody, it seemed, who ever drew a breath, that's how
. Smith knew everything. If he said no to Warner Pell, it was no.

  And it was also a pain in the ass.

  "Now what?" Remo said.

  "I think you ought to go back to this Kaufperson person and find out more from her. She may have known who Pell's boss was. And, remember, it's somebody with contacts in the Justice Department, or they couldn't find out where the witnesses are being sheltered."

  "All right," said Remo. "But I want to tell you something. When I signed on for this job, I didn't sign on to be a detective. I signed on to do my specialty, zip, zip and get out. And now I'm a detective and I don't like it. I didn't even want to be a detective when I was alive."

  "Please, Remo, we're on an open line."

  "I don't care. I'm tired of working out of my function. I've been a bodyguard and a messenger and a detective and I'm not supposed to be any of those things. Why don't you hire a detective if you want a detective?"

  "Because good detectives cost money and you work cheap," said Smith, and before Remo could decide whether or not Smith was indulging in a rare moment of levity, Smith had hung up the phone.

  Remo hung up too, vowing that the next day he would buy a new wardrobe. He would buy three new wardrobes. He would throw away all his clothes and buy enough clothes for the entire backcourt of the New York Knickerbockers, and he would charge them all to Smith.

  This prospect gave him sixty seconds of unalloyed pleasure until he remembered he had done just that the week before.

  "HnnnnrikJckTcKkTck." The snoring gave him no pleasure.

  Remo picked up the phone again and dialed the desk.

  "Desk."

  "Hello, this is Mr. Maxwell in Room 453. I need a favor."

  "Yes sir, I'll try."

  "Are you on duty all night?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Fine. I want you to ring my phone every hour. Ring it just three times and hang up. Don't bother waiting for an answer."

  "But…"

  "You see, I'm working on this big project and I've got to keep at it all night long, but I'm afraid I might doze off."

  "Oh. I see, sir. Certainly, I'll take care of it."

  "Fine, and in the morning, I'll take care of you."

  "When should I start?"

  "It's ten to twelve. Why not at midnight and then every hour from then on? Three rings."

  "Very good, sir. And good luck."

  "Good luck?" asked Remo.

  "With your big project."

  "Oh, that. Thanks."