Child's Play td-23 Read online

  On a scale of one to ten, the consolation that thought brought Remo was a minus three. He was dissatisfied throughout the rest of the plane flight, dejected when he reached Chicago, and disgusted when he and Chiun went to Atlantic City for a rest. Chiun was overjoyed to find that Atlantic City's streets were the inspiration for the game of Monopoly, even though his joy dissipated when he passed the Boardwalk and Baltic Avenue six times in one day and no one gave him two hundred dollars.

  Ten days later Remo was still down when he talked to Smith.

  "Everything has been taken care of," Smith said. "Our friend George was unfortunately killed in a car accident. However, his widow will collect his Justice Pension."

  "What about Sashur?" Remo asked.

  "She is now in custody," Smith said.

  "What's she being charged with?"

  "That, unfortunately, poses a problem. We cannot try her. The publicity would tear our anti-crime program apart, and who knows how many mental cripples would try to follow her act?"

  "You mean, she's getting off scot free?" Remo said in dull surprise.

  "No, not exactly. Ms. Kaufperson has been very helpful to us in preparing cases against those people with whom she contracted for… er, work. Many of them may be going away for a while as a result of her information."

  "But what about her?"

  "I don't know," Smith said. "After it's all over, maybe a new identity, a new start. Obviously, we couldn't send her to prison. With the people she's offended, she wouldn't last twenty-four hours."

  "Where is she now?" asked Remo.

  "The Justice people have her safely away, out of harm's reach," Smith said.

  "Where?" Remo asked casually.

  "She's squirreled away in a little town in Alabama. Leeds," Smith said. "And how are you do-"

  Smith was cut off by the click of the telephone.

  Remo turned and looked across the hotel room to where Chiun sat on the threadbare carpet, meditating.

  "This bird is learning to fly, Little Father,'' Remo said.

  Chiun looked up and smiled. His hands opened and the fingers moved upward like a blooming flower.

  "The blood of Sinanju runs in you, my son, as strongly as if you were born hearing the waters of the bay. When you were first attacked by those children, you could not respond because you were but a child yourself in the ways of Sinanju."

  "I know," said Remo. This time he did not feel insulted when Chiun spoke of his ignorance.

  "But you quickly grew," Chiun went on. "And you are growing still."

  "It is a terrible thing to teach children to kill is it not?" Remo asked.

  "It is the worst of all crimes because it not only robs the present of life, it robs the future of hope."

  "I know," said Remo.

  "Then you know how it must be answered."

  "I do now," Remo said.

  Leeds' main real estate broker was delighted to show the young man some of the property for sale in the town, but unfortunately the house on the hill overlooking the town had just gone off the market.

  "Oh? Who bought it?" the young man asked.

  "Fella from up north. Said he needed rest and quiet. Didn't look sick though. Heh, heh. Nothing too sick about a man who pays cash for a house."

  In the house on the hill that night, Sashua Kaufperson felt good. Even though she was disgusted with Alabama television and its good old boys with their "hiyalls" and their "golly gees," and even though the Justice Department man assigned for her protection had rejected her offer of bed and bod, she felt on top of the world.

  A few more sessions and she'd be clear, with some money, a passport, and a new identity. She would be off to parts unknown and eventually to Switzerland where several hundred thousands of dollars waited for her in a numbered account.

  As she lay in bed listening to the crickets outside her window, she smiled. She had challenged the system and won. Free. And rich.

  As she thought of all the things the future had to hold for a rich, liberated female-type person, she did not notice the crickets hush. Nor did she hear her window open quietly.

  She only realized someone was in her room when she felt a hand clasp over her mouth and another hand move into her collarbone and press nerves that made it impossible for her to move,

  "Killing is bad enough," a voice whispered to her. "But making children into killers is the worst crime of all. The punishment is death."

  When he had finished her, the killer took her body into the bathroom, where he ran a bath, forced water into Sashur's lungs, and left the body crumpled in the tub.

  Then as silently as he had appeared, he went out the window, closing it behind him. He moved into the deep grass, where his shadow blended with the other shadows of the night, and only the sudden stilling of the crickets marked the movement of the youngest Master of Sinanju-in that ages-old house, hardly more than a child himself.

  A happy child.

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  Document creation date: 23 September 2010

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