Child's Play td-23 Read online

  The boy hesitated.

  "Go ahead," Remo said. "Here. I'll turn around. That'll make it easier."

  He turned his back on the boy. The boy paused, leaned back and jumped into the air, both feet aimed at Remo in a two-foot flying kick right out of the UHF televised wrestling matches.

  Remo felt the pressure of the feet coming near him, turned and leaned back just far enough so the feet stopped an inch short of his face. He grabbed both feet in his hands and dragged the boy to the edge of the roof. He tossed him over, hanging onto the struggling boy by one ankle.

  When the boy realized that he was hanging, head downward, fifty feet above the pavement and that his only support might let him go if he fought, he stopped struggling.

  Remo turned to the other boys. "Here's your first lesson. No matter how good you are, there's somebody better. That's true-except for one person in the world, but that doesn't matter to you. So before you get smartassed again, you better think about that. Your second lesson is that you're too young to be in this business. Now, one at a time, I think I'm going to put you over this roof so you get a taste of what dying slow is like. Would you like that, class?"

  There was silence.

  "I can't hear you," Remo called.

  "No. No. No," came scattered voices.

  "Good," Remo said. "Except you mean, 'No, sir,' don't you?"

  "No, sir. No, sir. No, sir. No, sir." More voices this time. Remo looked over the edge of the roof at the boy who lay still. "I didn't hear you," Remo said.

  "No, sir," the boy said. "Pull me up. Please. Pull me up."

  "Let's hear you say it again."

  "Please pull me up."

  "Pretty please?"

  "Pretty please."

  "With sugar on it?"

  "With sugar on it."

  "Good," said Remo, He raised the boy with one simple upward move of his right hand, as if there were a yoyo attached to it instead of a one-hundred-twenty-pound boy. On the street below, he saw Sashur Kaufperson's Mercedes and realized he had been spending a lot of time on this roof.

  The boy came over the railing and Remo dropped him onto the roof headfirst. The boy scurried away, crablike, afraid to get up without permission, but more afraid to stay close to that madman's feet.

  "All right, class," Remo said. "Your final lesson of the evening. Every one of you bastards will be in school tomorrow morning. You're going to be nice and polite and say yes, sir and please and thank you. You're going to do your homework and you're going to behave yourselves. Because if you don't, I'm coming back to rip your frigging tongues out. Got it?"

  "Yes, sir." The answer this time was a shouted roar.

  "All right. And remember. I know your names and your schools, and I'll check on you. When I do, I hope you won't have done anything to make me mad."

  "We won't. We won't, sir. No, sir, we won't."

  "Good," said Remo. "And now I think it's past your bedtimes and you young fellas ought to be getting home. Would you like that?"

  "Yes, sir," in unison.

  "All right," said Remo. He walked to the locked door.

  "And just so you don't forget me."

  Remo put both his hands into the hole he had smashed into the metal door, twisted his arms in opposite directions, setting up a rhythm in the metal. When it was vibrating in ways it was not made to vibrate in, he leaned back and ripped the door down its side, almost like ripping the flap off an unsealed envelope.

  The roof was suddenly bathed in light. Remo stood there looking at the boys, holding the door in front of him as if it were a waiter's tray. He smiled. For the first time, all the boys could see his face clearly. He made it not a nice face to look at.

  "Don't make me come after you," he said.

  "No, sir." One final shout and then the boys were running down the stairs, down toward the street, and home.

  Remo watched them go, then tossed the door off onto another part of the roof.

  He smiled. If those kids were scared now, they should have tried lipping off to Sister Mary Elizabeth.

  Remo went to the side of the building and over and down to the street. He used a light telephone wire running down the side of the building to, steer himself. The wire was too light to hold his weight, but Remo did not put his weight on it, not pulling downward, but using it instead to slow him as he moved bouncingly off the wall, back to the wall, out again, each time dropping four or five feet.

  Below him he saw Sashur Kaufperson getting into her Mercedes. She was pulling away from the curb when Remo got to the car, pulled open the door and slid into the passenger seat.

  "Hi," he said as she looked at him in panic. "That's the one thing I always liked about teaching. The short hours."

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Sashur Kaufperson had decided to come clean. She hadn't been telling Remo the truth, the whole truth. Well, not exactly.

  When she had told Remo that Warner Pell was the boss of the kids-for-killing operation, she had indulged in a slight mental reservation. Pell was her boss, but she knew he was not the head man. She had no idea of who the head man was.

  She had been telling the truth when she said that Pell had panicked when the heat was put on and had threatened to hand her up to the authorities.

  She had been shocked, stunned, frightened, but she had never entertained the thought of having one of the children kill Pell. At least not until she got a telephone call.

  The caller was Pell's boss, the head of the operation. She did not know the man, who did not identify himself.

  Remo groaned in disgust as Sashur kept driving.

  "I have had just about enough of this almost-but-not-quite and I'm not sure and some secret voice over the phone. Who was the guy?"

  "I'm coming to it, Remo," she said. "First, he told me to have Alvin eliminate Pell. He said it was the only way to save myself."

  "And so at great sacrifice to yourself, and even more to Pell, you did it," Remo suggested.

  "Your being sarcastic doesn't help," Sashur said.

  "Gee, I'm sorry. I must have lost my manners back there when those kids were trying to kill me."

  "You have to understand. I didn't train those little bastards; Pell did that. He taught them hand-to-hand fighting and weapons and other stuff. God knows what."

  "And you just took roll call every morning?"

  She shook her head as she made a left-hand turn.

  "I'm a qualified psychologist. Pell had me work with the children on discipline, the need not to talk. I had to motivate them."

  "You did great," Remo said. "I can't remember ever seeing such motivated children."

  Sashur pulled the car to the curb and stomped on the footbrake.

  "I'm telling you the truth," she blurted out. "Why don't you just kill me now and get this all over with? I'm too tired to hold it all in, and I'm tired of worrying. And I'm tired of trying to explain it to you without your listening."

  Her shoulders heaved and her face went down against the steering wheel and she wept.

  "Stop it," Remo said. "I hate women who cry."

  "I'm sorry," she said and sniffled. "I'm just so tired. So tired of all this… the lies, the deceit, the… I'm so tired."

  Remo patted her shoulder consolingly. "Come on. Calm down. Just tell me what happened."

  She shook her head, as if splashing away tears, and began to drive again, checking carefully in her rearview mirror before pulling into the roadway.

  "Anyway, I helped Pell train by doing motivation work on the children. Then one day I got a call. I told you, this was just after Pell said he was going to make me the scapegoat."

  "And?"

  "It was a man I never heard before. He didn't give his name. But he told me just what I was doing and what Pell was doing and then he let me know he was Pell's superior. And he told me that if I wanted Pell kept quiet, I would have to do it myself. Otherwise, I would go to jail. Oh, Remo, it made me sick. But I had to do it. I was afraid. So I told Alvin to shoot Pell."

/>   "They listened to you? When Pell was their trainer?"

  "But I was their motivation expert. They believed in me."

  "And?"

  "That's it," said Sashur.

  "Not quite," Remo said. "What were you doing with those kids tonight?"

  "Oh," Sashur Kaufperson said. "I nearly left out the most important part. The man who called me about Pell? Well, he called me about you and the Oriental earlier today. He told me you two would be coming, and I should have you killed. But this time I wouldn't do it. No, I wouldn't do it."

  "Did you tell him that?"

  "No. I just made like I'd go along with anything. But as soon as I got off the phone with him, I called the police and told them I needed protection. From you two. I thought you were killers."

  "Me? A killer?" Remo asked.

  Sashur smiled. "That's what I thought. And then you came to my apartment and right after that the police I had called broke in and they let me out of the closet."

  "And you still don't know who this big boss is? The one who phoned you with your orders?"

  "No, I do. I do. I just found out tonight."

  "Who is it?"

  "I saw him on television," Sashur said. "Maybe you saw him too. General Haupt. I'd know that voice anywhere."

  "Good. I've got business with General Haupt," Remo said.

  Remo had, of course, been aware of the car following them. The steady illumination of the interior of Sashur's car by headlights reflected in the rearview mirror, vanishing momentarily whenever they made a turn, then resuming was such a tipoff Remo hadn't even bothered to turn around to look.

  So Remo was not surprised that as Sashur parked in front of his motel, the car behind them pulled around and nosed into the curb in front of them.

  "Oh, balls," said Sashur.

  "What?"

  "It's George."

  Remo saw the man getting out of the gray Chevrolet and recognized George as Sashur's boyfriend who had tried to follow them the night before, when they were leaving Sashur's apartment.

  He was standing now alongside Remo's door.

  "All right, you, get out of there." His voice was an attempt at a growl but too high-pitched to sound anything but playful. It was a puppy's bark.

  "Sure," said Remo through the partially opened window.

  Sashur restrained him with a hand on his arm. "Don't go," she said. "He's got an awful temper. George, why don't you just get out of here?"

  "I'm tired of your cheating on me," George whined. Remo noticed he was a fattish man, who moved sloppily on his feet. As he talked to Sashur, he was swaying from side to side impatiently.

  "Cheating on you?" she said. "Even if I were, which I haven't been…"

  "Very good," Remo said. "Subjunctive mood. Condition contrary to fact." He turned to George. "Would a woman who was cheating on you be cool enough to say 'if I were' instead of 'if I was'?"

  "If I were, which I haven't been," Sashur repeated, "how could it be cheating? We're not married."

  "Name the day," said George.

  "Any day but today," Remo said. "She's going out of town with me today."

  "Okay, fella, that's it for you. Get out of there," George said.

  "I was just coming," Remo said. He pushed open the door and moved lightly onto the sidewalk. George backed up to make room for him.

  Sashur leaned across the seat to call, "Watch out for him, Remo."

  Remo looked at George and saw his eyes were glistening brightly. He had tears in his eyes.

  This poor nit loved that poor nit, Remo realized. Maybe they were made for each other.

  "You gonna leave her alone?" demanded George.

  Yes, he loved her. No doubt. Maybe she could learn to love him too.

  "Make me," Remo said.

  "You asked for it," George said. He threw a roundhouse right-hand punch of the variety used by brown bears to catch swimming fish.

  Remo let it hit him high up on the left side of the head, moving his head just a fraction of an inch on contact. Like all noncombatants George stopped his punch as soon as it touched target. Remo felt the knuckles touch his skin, and he recoiled slightly as George pulled his hand back for another punch.

  Remo leaned against the trunk of the car as if he had been knocked there.

  "Had enough?" George asked.

  "I have not yet begun to fight," Remo said.

  George jumped forward, his body as open as a dinner invitation, and threw another right hand. Remo let this one get him on the shoulder and made a display of rolling over on the fender of the car and groaning.

  "Ooooohhh."

  "George, stop," Sashur yelled. "You'll kill him."

  "Damn right, I'll kill him," George said. His voice was lower now, huskier. "And you too, if you cheat on me again."

  "Oooooohhh," groaned Remo.

  George nodded at him for emphasis and danced around to the left, throwing his left jab at air. "Want anymore, guy?"

  "No, no," said Remo. "Enough for me."

  "Okay. Keep your hands off my woman. This is the second time I caught you. There won't be a third time." George leaned into Sashur's car. "I'll be at the school tomorrow when you get off work. You're coming to my place and you're staying the night."

  "In a pig's…"

  "No arguments, baby. You heard me. Tomorrow after school."

  Heavy-footed, George stomped away. As he drove off, he peeled rubber.

  Remo waited until George's car had turned the corner before he got off the fender.

  Sashur came to him. "Remo, are you hurt?"

  "Never laid a glove on me." Remo touched his jaw as if it were tender. "Come on," he said, "we've got to go upstairs."

  He led Sashur Kaufperson into the motel, pleased with himself for perhaps having made the course of true love run a little smoother in Chicago.

  Chiun was awake when they got to the room and Remo was immeasurably pleased, because he did not enjoy the prospect of waking the Master of Sinanju at 3 a.m.

  The old man turned as Remo and Sashur entered. He had been standing at the window, looking out.

  "Oh, Remo," he said. "I am glad you are here. Safely."

  Remo squinted. "Safely? Why safely?"

  "This is a terrible city."

  "Why? Because it's not Persia where people like us are appreciated?"

  "No. Because there is terrible violence," Chiun said. "Just now, for instance. I saw two men fighting out in the street. A terrible battle. A fat man was pummeling a skinny one into mush. Awful. Terrible. The skinny man took a terrific beating. I do not know how he was able to survive it."

  "All right, Little Father, knock it off," Remo said.

  "And I was so frightened. I thought, Remo might come home any moment and he might be attacked by these two terrible warriors, and I worried so. I am glad you brought this woman to protect you. She is the woman of the gold coins."

  "Right. This is Sashur Kaufperson," Remo said.

  "How do you do?" said Sashur, who had been watching the conversation from just inside the motel suite door.

  "Sashur Kauf is a very strange name," Chiun said.

  "It's not Kauf. It's Kaufperson," Remo said.

  "There is no such name as Kaufperson," Chiun said. "Never had I heard it, even on the picture box where the names have all forms of foolishness such as Smith and Johnson and Jones and Lindsay and Courtney."

  "It's Kaufperson," Sashur said.

  "I suppose you cannot help it."

  "I'm glad you're up, Chiun," Remo said. "I'm going to call Smitty, and then we've got to get ready to go."

  "Where are we going?"

  "Back to Fort Bragg."

  "Good," said Chiun. "Anything to get away from this violent city. Oh, you should have seen the battle. Epic. First the fat man threw a most fearsome punch. It was like this." Chiun waved his right arm around him like a stone on the end of a string.

  "Frightening," Remo agreed.

  "It hit the stupid man…"

  "Wait. Why
stupid?" said Remo.

  "One can tell. Even at a distance. A pale piece of pig's ear is a pale piece of pig's ear. The blow hit the stupid man alongside the head. It would have scrambled his brains, had he any."

  Chiun jumped back, as if shadow boxing.

  "The fat man continued on the attack with another brutal blow. Oh, the damage it would have done had it too landed on the head. But fortunately the stupid man took the blow on his shoulder. He surrendered instantly."

  "Not a moment too soon, I guess," Remo said.

  "He might have suffered permanent injury if he continued," Chiun said. "His hamburger eating apparatus might have been broken. The physical centers that control his sloth, his ingratitude, his selfishness might even have been injured, and how then could a white man carry on in life?"

  "You're right, Little Father. This is a violent city, and we have to leave. I'll call Smith."

  But when he looked for the telephone atop the desk, he could not find it.

  "Chiun. Where's the telephone?"

  "The what?" said Chiun, turning again to the window.

  "The telephone."

  "Oh. The instrument that brawks through the night when elderly people are trying to gain a few moments of god-sent rest from the travails of the day? The instrument that interferes with…"

  "Right. Right. Right, Chiun, right. The telephone."

  "It is no more."

  "What'd you do with it?"

  "I suffered its intrusion upon me the first time. The second time I decided to end its brawffing misery."

  "And?"

  "It is in the wastepaper basket," Chiun said.

  Remo looked into the wicker basket. In the bottom of its white plastic liner was a pile of dull blue dust, all that was left of a powder blue Princess phone with touch-tone dialing.

  "Good going, Chiun,"

  "I did not ask it to ring. I did not telephone the servant below and ask him to ring the telephone at certain intervals."

  "Oh," said Remo.

  "Indeed 'oh.' One who would do that should be beaten up in the street."

  "May I sit down?" asked Sashur Kaufperson, who was still standing just inside the door.

  "Sure," said Remo. "The chair's over there. On top of the couch. But don't get too comfortable."

  "Why not?"

  "You're going with us. To see General Haupt."