Firing Line td-41 Read online

  "C'mon, twerp," Remo called. "Come and get me. Or is it only women and children you kill? Come on, nit."

  Sparky was turning blue again. His internal fires

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  were regenerating themselves. "I'm going to wrap my hands around your neck," he yelled, "and hold on until they burn right through."

  "What are you waiting for?" Remo said. "Come on." He lifted his chin. "Here's my neck, punk, you sicky little bastard. Come get it."

  With a growl, even as his aura was changing from blue to the hotter red, Sparky raced at Remo. Remo waited until the boy was almost on him, until he could feel the heat from the kid's fingers. And then Remo ducked out of the way. The momentum of Sparky's charge carried him past Remo, into the circle of fire from which Remo had escaped, and the heaviness of his steps caused him to burst through the flaming floor. Remo turned to see the boy crash through the weakened floor down into the rooms below. Remo expected to hear the thump of his body hitting the floor. But there was no thump. There was only a squishing sound and then a pitiful, heart-rending scream that ended abruptly, as if the screamer had run out of air and could take no more breaths.

  Remo carefully picked his way past the fire and looked down through the hole in the floor. Sparky McGurl had fallen so that the flat part of his body was impaled on a long wooden coat rack shaped like a spear, which was standing in the middle of the floor, directly below the hole in the floor. Standing next to the coat rack was Chiun. He look at Remo and held his arms out to his sides, saying only, "A terrible accident."

  Then he turned to look at the boy, whose body had now reverted to human color, but whose look as he hung, impaled, was a dead, inhuman mixture of pain and panic.

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  "Some accident," Remo said. 'Teople have to be careful where they leave their clothes racks," Chiun said blandly.

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  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The firemen's strike was settled by a compromise: those firemen who wanted to go deer hunting could have the first day of deer season as a vacation day; those who didn't could have St. Switbin's day off.

  The fires were out around the city; the twin towers of the World Trade Center had been saved from serious damage except for the offices of the Safety First Grandslam Insurance Company, which were totally wrecked.

  Remo and Chiun were back in their hotel room overlooking Central Park.

  Remo was satisfied.

  "We evened the score for Ruby," he said.

  Chiun nodded. "Yes," he said. "You paid it back by death because this is your way, as it is my way. Have you finally realized you are an assassin, a dealer in death? When retribution is required, we do not write letters to the editor. We do not go on picket lines. We deal in a much more basic way with those who threaten the fabric of our civilized society. You must be an assassin because there is nothing else you can be. You cannot be a fisherman or a man who demonstrates on television machines

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  that cut carrots. You have tried those things. You cannot do them. What you can do is what you have been trained to do. Be an assassin. Like me, you must kill to live."

  Remo was lying on the couch. He looked out the window at the smokeless sky. "It's a shit deal, Chiun," he said.

  "They are the cards that fate dealt you," Chiun said.

  "I know," Remo said. "I know."

  Later in the day, he asked Chiun for Ruby's medal.

  "I threw it away," Chiun said. "It was cheap junk and it turns your neck green to wear it."

  Remo looked at him in surprise. "You gave Ruby junk?" he asked.

  "Would I do that?" asked Chiun.

  Later that night, Smith came to their hotel room. He carried not only his gray briefcase, but a small box wrapped in manila paper.

  Smith told Remo he had done good work with the two arsonists. "Even though it wasn't technically a CURE assignment," Smith said, "it was the proper thing to do."

  "I'm glad you liked it," Remo said. "But I didn't do it for you or your dipshit organization."

  "I know," Smith said. "For Ruby." He was silent a moment, then he added, "Remo, I regret what happened to her as much as you do. I really liked Ruby."

  "But not enough that you wouldn't ask me to kill her," said Remo.

  Smith nodded. 'That's correct. I did not like her so much that I was going to jeopardize our organization and our country. You know that we live on

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  secrecy, and if we're exposed, our whole government could go under."

  "Somehow, Smitty," said Remo, "I just don't give. a rat's ass."

  Smith excused himself. He stopped at the door and, as an afterthought, tossed the manila-wrapped box to Remo. "The desk clerk asked me to give this to you." Then he left.

  There was no return address on the package.

  Remo opened it up. There was a metallic silver box inside. Printed in gold across the top of it was the legend: Ruby's Wig Empoeium, Norfolk, Va."

  Remo looked at Chiun in confusion. Chiun's face was blank.

  Remo opened the box. It contained a curly blond wig for a man, in a style made famous by professional wrestlers.

  He lifted it out of the box as if it were a dead mouse, looked at it, and then looked back inside the box. There was a piece of paper under the wig.

  He dropped the wig on the floor and opened the note.

  It read, "This is for your pointy little head, turkey."

  The note was unsigned, but in his mind, Remo could almost hear Ruby Gonzalez screaming at him across the distance.

  He looked at Chiun and caught the old man in one of his rare smiles. Suddenly, he knew the truth. Ruby lived and Chiun knew that she lived.

  Remo smiled.

  "The medal?" he asked.

  "A cheap copy she had made of the one I gave her. She was just waiting for a chance to drop it somewhere to prove her death." said Chiun. "When

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  she found that body in the fire, that was her chance."

  "She was the one who called you in St. Louis and told us to go to New York?" Remo said.

  Chiun nodded. "Of course."

  "And Smith?' Remo asked.

  "He thinks that Ruby is dead," said Chiun.

  "What should we do?" asked Remo.

  "We should let sleeping lies lie," said Chiun. "What emperors don't know won't hurt their assassins."

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