Killing Time td-50 Read online

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  request to you, O mighty Emperor, was of a small pho­tograph of the lovely Cheeta Ching in the timeless garb of her native land. But lo, even that humble re­quest was denied. And I accept that denial. I am but an unworthy assassin whose knowledge is unwanted. I am but a small grain upon the pebbled beach of

  life....''

  "Oh, never mind," Smith said.

  "Goddammit, I'm going to fry your ass," snarled Cheeta Ching as Remo tied the rope around her wrists into a neat square knot. Her feet were bound to the legs of the Bauhaus chair in Cheeta's living room fur­nished in early Gestapo. Remo still felt the bruises from that maneuver. The way the woman kicked, Remo reasoned she'd received her journalistic train­ing in the Viet Cong.

  In the scuffle, he managed to drag her into the flow­ing red and yellow satin robes he'd rented from a cos­tume shop, but she'd slugged her way out of them three times, and by the time the newscaster was ade­quately restrained, the gown was a mass of tatters held together with several rolls of shiny scotch tape.

  "I told you, I just want to get a picture," Remo said.

  "Then call my press agent, asshole. From jail. Breaking and entering's a crime in this state, you tur­key."

  "Yes, well, I'm sorry about that," Remo said, ad­justing his camera, "But I did ask you. And your agent. You both refused."

  "Damn right, shitheel," Cheeta screeched. "Some pervert wants me to pose for him in this wierd getup straight out of a road show of Gilbert and Suliivan, what do you expe6t?"

  "A picture," Remo said patiently.

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  "I suppose you're going to rape me next."

  "Wrongo," Remo said. "Smile."

  "I know what you scumbags have on your minds. You see a gorgeous chick, all you want to do is whack it to her."

  "I'll decide that if I happen to see one," Remo said. "You're drooling."

  Cheeta seethed. "You know what you are?"

  Remo sighed, advancing the film. He was going to get a whole roll of the harpy in all her glory, so that Chiun would have his choice of twenty-four different aspects of the nastiest human being on earth. And Remo wouid never have to return. "No. Tell me."

  "You're a sexist, capitalist, imperialist, warmon­gering swine," she said, grinning triumphantly.

  "Great," Remo said, snapping off two shots. The old man would like the smiling pictures. "What else?"

  "Huh?"

  "Tell me what else ! am."

  She thought for a moment. "A foul, disgusting, loathsome degenerate?" she asked tentatively.

  "Fine, fine," Remo said, snapping away. Those ex­pressions would pass for Serene Contemplation. "How about an obnoxious, offensive, vile, inhuman beast?" he offered.

  Cheeta brightened. Her face came as close to inno­cent joy as it was ever going to get. "Hey, that's okay, really okay. You ought to go into the news business. There's lots of opportunity for creative writing in the news."

  "So I've noticed," Remo said. "Go back to calling me an imperialist warmonger. You look better that way."

  "How dare you talk to me like that, you seedy, re­volting, shit-brained clod."

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  "Terrific," Remo snapped off a few more. " 'Seedy's' good. Works almost like 'cheese." "

  "You don't know your pecker from a stick," Cheeta sneered.

  Remo snapped. "Sure I do," he said pleasantly. "I'd touch you with a stick."

  Cheeta emitted a high jungle yell. " "You sick, slimy, nauseating, vermin-infested, flee-bitten, loose-boweled, crap-eating jock-honkey-nigger-kike jerk-off!" she screamed.

  Remo finished off the roll. "That did it. You're a nat­ural, Cheeta. You ought to pose as a centerfold. Sol­dier of Fortune might be interested. They like pictures of tanks. Be seeing you."

  She strained on the ropes behind her back, jumping so hard that the chair thumped off the gouund. "Hey, you can't leave. Get me out of this thing. Untie me."

  "I'll call your keeper," Remo said.

  Chiun hung the picture in a place of honor directly in front of the window in the motel room. It blocked out most of the light.

  "This way, when we seek the sun, we will find it be­hind Cheeta's bright visage," he said.

  "Great," Remo said, squinting up from the book h© was straining to read. "She looks better in the dark, anyway."

  He went back to his book. It was a history of the film goddesses of the thirties. The pages on Posie Pon-selle were worn and shiny. For the thousandth time, Remo stared at the old photograph of her, looking ex­actly as she did the last time he saw her.

  "You have pleased me, my son."

  "I'm glad, Little Father," he said quietly. Nothing was going to bring Posie back now. Maybe that was

  199

  for the best. She herself had told him that there were worse things than growing old, and she probably knew what they were. But he missed her. He couldn't help that.

  "You have gladdened my heart almost to perfec­tion."

  "It's okay, Chiun."

  "I say almost, because there is but one other thing, a small thing, a nothing, that would make my happi­ness complete."

  Remo didn't answer.

  "I said there is but one other thing," Chiun said, louder.

  Remo looked up, disgusted.

  "Of course, if you have no thought of an old man's final happiness in the twilight of his years . . ." He trailed off. Remo went back to his reading. "It would have been such a small request," Chiun went on. "A mere trifle. The humblest of insignificances-"

  "Oh, he!!," Remo said, slamming the book. "What is it?"

  The old man's face beamed with fresh anticipation, "I was just thinking, Remo," he said, bouncing as he spoke, "how Sovely it would be to have a picture of both of us. Of the lovely Cheeta Ching and the Master of Sinanju together. Perhaps with her small delicate hand clasping mine as she gazes up to me in adora­tion. Something simple. With the romantic shores of Sinanju in the background. Remo . . . Remo? Where are you going?"

  "Ever hear of the Foreign Legion?" Remo asked at the door.

  "No."

  "Good."

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