Funny Money td-18 Read online

  "Did you use it last time?" asked Remo.

  "Yes, but…"

  "It stays here. Along with you."

  Forsythe had started to object, but seeing the body of the sniper being lifted to a stretcher and covered with a white sheet had suddenly refocused his thinking.

  "At this crucial juncture, we must diversify personnel initiative," he had said.

  "That means we make the connection alone," said Remo. "Right?"

  "And never come back," predicted Group Leader Forsythe.

  Remo saw Chiun motioning.

  "And my friend wants to take the model planes."

  "Let him have them. My God, do you think we could find someone who would try to stop him?"

  Chiun unfolded the half-dozen miniature jets from his kimono as they flew over Lake Erie. Chiun studied the models for a time, then said:

  "I do not know how you Westerners do it, but these planes are almost perfect for moving through the air. Without knowledge of the essence of movement or the philosophies I have taught you, these people with just their machines and their typewriters and other foolishnesses have designed these planes. I am amazed."

  This too did the Master of Sinanju tell a stewardess who told a pilot who came to where Chiun and Remo sat on the DC-10 headed for Chicago.

  "This is a good plane," said Chiun.

  "Thank you," said the pilot, in his early fifties, a tanned bright face of an athlete who never stopped caring for himself.

  "But it has one flaw," said Chiun and he pointed to the configuration of the tail. "Here it should go in where it goes out."

  The pilot turned to the stewardess. "You two are kidding me." And then to Chiun, "You're an engineer from McDonnell Douglas, aren't you?"

  "What's going on?" asked Remo, who had been napping.

  "Well, this gentleman here has just tried to pass himself off as a layman instead of an aeronautics engineer. He just showed me a design I know the company had to reject because they did not have materials that were advanced enough."

  "Advanced?" said Chiun and he cackled. "This suggestion I made is thousands of years old."

  At O'Hare, a little boy wanted to play with Chiun's model planes. Chiun told him to get his own. They had five hours to wait. It was a little after ten and the contact with Mr. Gordons was set for 3 A.M. in Allegheny's boarding gate Number 8. Forsythe said Gordons had obviously chosen it because of the difficulty of anyone getting to a convenient exit from there. It was, as Forsythe had said, a long box.

  Remo and Chiun watched people meet people and people leave. They watched that general small tension that people have while waiting to board. At three, they were resting and should have seen him. That extra sense Remo had about people approaching did not work. Chiun, for the first time in Remo's memory, appeared startled. His eyes opened. Slowly, with the infinitely perfect balance that made him Master of Sinanju, he retreated, putting a ticket booth between himself and Mr. Gordons. Remo remembered Chiun had once said that in extreme emergencies, one could disguise his defenses by hiding his feet.

  "Good evening, I'm Mr. Gordons," said the man. Remo judged that they were about even in height, but Gordons was heavier. He moved with an odd slowness, not the graceful slowness of Chiun, but rather a deliberate, almost stumbling gliding of the feet forward. When he stopped, the gray suit hardly moved. His lips parted in something that was almost a smile. And stayed that way.

  "I'm Remo, your contact. You got the plates?"

  "Yes, I do have the plates intended for you. The evening is rather warm, don't you think? I am sorry I do not have a drink to offer you, but we are in an airport terminal and there are no liquor faucets in an airport terminal."

  "There aren't any bowling alleys or Mah Jongg tables either. What the hell are you talking about?"

  "I am making the greeting that should put you at ease."

  "I'm at ease," said Remo. "You got the plates?"

  "Yes. I have your package and I can see by your hand that you have mine. I will give you your package for mine," said Mr. Gordons.

  "Surrender it, Remo," Chiun called from near the ticket booth. Remo saw a model plane, that perfect missile in the hands of the Master of Sinanju, shoot streaking at Mr. Gordons. With barely a nodding jerk of his head, Mr. Gordons dodged it. And dodged the next. And the next. They cracked the steel and aluminum walls of the boarding corridor, leaving gaping night-filled holes. One took the head off of a wall advertisement for the Pump Room featuring a singer who now had a large bosom and air for a head.

  "Remo," yelled Chiun. "Give him what he wants. Give him what he wants."

  Remo did not turn around.

  "Give me the plates," said Remo.

  "Remo. Do not engage in foolishness. Remo."

  "I have four plates for fifties and hundreds. The fifties are the Kansas City Federal Reserve Notes 1963 E, front 214, back 108. The hundreds are the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Notes 1974 B, front 118, back 102."

  "Who do you work for?" asked Remo, moving his left hand underneath Mr. Gordons's right armpit and pressuring a nerve that would hold and cause pain. The pain was to come on the question and increase during the wait for the answer. That was how it had worked many times before.

  "I work for myself. For my existence," said Mr. Gordons.

  "Give him what he wants, Remo. Get your arm away," shouted Chiun and then, in the excitement, he gave forth a stream of Korean that sounded to Remo like the phrases he had heard in early training about "things being unworking." In later training, it had always been his training that Chiun said was "unworking." Everything else in the world worked perfectly. But now Remo knew Chiun's shout did not refer to his training.

  "Look at the face."

  Mr. Gordons was still smiling that silly little smile, so Remo increased the pressure and he felt the skin become rubbery and some sort of bone snap but it was no bone Remo was familiar with.

  "Do not do that. You have already caused damage," said Mr. Gordons. "If you continue you will cause a temporary loss of my right side. This could threaten my survival. I must stop you."

  Perhaps it was the smile that threw him, the shock of it still being there. Perhaps it was the strange feel of the muscles and flesh. But when Remo went to double the approach with his right hand, using the program as a hard edge instead of his hand, he seemed to slip and his balance was not in balance with Mr. Gordons's and he was going down as Mr. Gordons caught his right elbow and with a steady pressure that he should not have been able to exert from the position he was in, Mr. Gordons closed on Remo's wrist, squeezing to make him release the program.

  "Let him have it. Give it up," yelled Chiun.

  "Give it up, hell," said Remo and whipped up a knee to take out Mr. Gordons's groin. But the knee flailed in the air as Remo's right shoulder felt hot irons ripping at the tendons.

  Remo saw the flash of Chiun's kimono come at him and then, to his shock, he did not see the awesome skill of the frail hands tear the smile from Mr. Gordons's face. Instead, he saw Chiun come at his own hands. Remo felt Chiun's long nails pry open his right hand. And then the program was gone. Mr. Gordons had it, dropping the plates as he pushed the program into his shirt.

  "Thank you," said Mr. Gordons, who then walked evenly away despite his damaged right side. Remo spun back to his feet and, at an angle to compensate for the damage to his arm, took the first step toward catching that sandy blond head and dismembering its supporting neck. But Chiun's foot was faster, and Remo tripped tumbling forward, groaning in pain from his shoulder. Chiun circled and stood between Remo and Mr. Gordons who was disappearing from the boarding area into the main lobby.

  "What'd you do that for? I had him. I had him," yelled Remo, his eyes tearing in frustration.

  "We must flee and I must bind your wounds, foolish one," said Chiun.

  "You let him get the program. You let him get it. Now we'll never see him again."

  "Let us hope for that," said Chiun and with his long delicate fingers began probing the shou
lder muscles of his young student. With strips from his own kimono, he bound the arm so there would be no more tearing and then took him to a ticket counter where the Master of Sinanju asked where there was sun and sea water. And being told many places, he selected the nearest, St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands, which was unknown to the Master of Sinanju but which he decided had probably been discovered only recently, in the last five hundred years or so.

  With the plates for the white man's paper money, Chiun made a package. And with the other paper printings, their stamps, pasted on the price of their mailing. And with their pens that needed no dipping into ink, not even brushes were these pens, he prepared a missive for Smith whose empire had employed this latest Master of Sinanju.

  Dear Harold Smith, Mr.

  Lo, these many years has the House of Sinanju served your empire and lo, these many years has your graciousness been bestowed upon our little village. Our children and our poor and our aged eat and are clothed and sleep under roofs that are of new materials.

  Never has the empire of Smith been negligent of its obligations. Full well has it paid its gold at appointed times. Without these obligations being met, the village of Sinanju would starve for the soil is rocky and the sea does not yield fish from the cold bay. The services of the Master of Sinanju for centuries has enabled our people to first, eat, and then to live in dignity. You hove met your agreement made more than a decade ago.

  The Master of Sinanju has also met his. The Master was contracted to take a normal white man and to teach him Sinanju. As much, you remember it was stipulated, as was needed so that he need not carry weapons to perform. This the young man learned. Within the very first year, he learned this. But he has learned much more than your gold purchased. He was given more than your gold could buy. He has become Sinanju more than anyone, even Japanese and other Koreans, outside of Sinanju has ever become.

  He has taken the sun source to his heart and this you did not pay for. He has conquered his body and become its master and this you did not pay for. He has joined and been given Sinanju in the completeness of what he could grasp. This you did not pay for and this the House of Sinanju would never sell. For Sinanju is not for sale; only its services are.

  Therefore, with much regret and with gratitude, the Master must inform you that Sinanju terminates the agreement. We will find sustenance elsewhere for the village, as will Remo and I.

  Incidentally, Remo being not only white but American white, will naturally have special affection for his homeland and should at a later time you need his services, you would be highly considered by him.

  Enclosed are the pieces of metal you wished. The mission is over. The contract is over.

  Chiun made the mark of Sinanju, an inverted trapezoid with a vertical line bisecting it—a figure for house—and then one for "absolute" which was more complicated but which represented his name and title, and with the envelope he had purchased along with the stamps and wrapping paper and stationery and pen at the airport merchant's, he covered the missive and made sure it was placed into the metal boxes which were emptied regularly and delivered by messengers. Not since Genghis Khan had there been such a service so well protected. Not a mean accomplishment, for Westerners.

  When he returned to the bench where Remo waited, he was pleased to see Remo sitting with his weight properly adjusted for his other muscles to support the torn ones. Often this young man's creative and learned knowledge had pleased the master to gladness. But one could not acknowledge such gladness for the young man's arrogance was already too much to bear. "What were you doing, Little Father, writing a book? You almost filled a whole pad," said Remo.

  "I was telling Emperor Smith of your misfortunes, of your damage."

  "Why? I'll be okay."

  Chiun shook his head with exaggerated solemnity. "Yes. I know that and you know that, but emperors are emperors, even if you wish to call them directors or presidents or whatever you wish to call them. And when an assassin is wounded, no matter how highly prized he is, emperors have no use for them."

  "Smitty?"

  "Yes. It is sad, my son. A wounded assassin has no home. Emperors' loyalties have limits."

  "But I'm part of the organization. I'm the only one outside of Smitty who knows what we do."

  "It is a sad lesson of growing up you are learning," said Chiun. "But do not fear. If emperors have no loyalty for assassins, yet there is always a market for our services. In the peace of Rome there was need, in the order of the Khan's sons there was need, and in the turmoil years, there is most definitely a need. Worry not. Rome is gone, the Chinese dynasties are gone. Sinanju lives."

  "I can't believe Smitty would feel that way," said Remo, and Chiun quieted him, for the young man needed rest for now. Their airplane would be leaving soon and this flight business, while it appeared to do little harm, did upset the blood in people as did the changing of the moons. But white men did not know this. Even few yellow men did.

  When they boarded the plane for St. Thomas, due to arrive at the airport named after a dead emperor, Truman, in less than five hours, Chiun noticed a small metallic spur implanted in Remo's clothes. And since he did not know what it was, he did not throw it away. It might be that of Mr. Gordons, whose technique in all the centuries of Sinanju was unknown, and who Remo foolishly had chosen to defy. But this could be forgiven Remo. He was young, not even yet sixty in years.

  Remo did not know that to confront the unknown, one must first stand aside and watch it and wait until it was known. Remo did not know that the Master of Sinanju hoped that Mr. Gordons would continue his adventures and by so doing become known in his methods as had the Hashashins of Arabia with their methods of fanaticism and skill.

  Another Master had encountered the Hashashins when they were a new thing and he immediately terminated services with Islamabad, and waited and watched and worked elsewhere as year by year the Hashashins became more known in their methods. So good were they, the very name assassin came from them. And that Master passed on to the following Master what he knew. And the following Master passed on what he knew, as each generation watched and avoided the rich markets of Araby. It was eighty years before Sinanju realized how the Hashashins used hashish on followers and how they recruited an outer layer of fanatics willing to die for paradise, and these fanatics protected their inner layer of leaders.

  When this was known, the House of Sinanju returned to the wealthy of the Islamic world, and, in one night, followed a drugged warrior of the house of Hashashins and waited until the first signs of their smoke appeared and then slaughtered them in their caves to the very last man. The Hashashins were no more.

  So too with Mr. Gordons. If not this year, then next. And if not the next, then surely the year after that. But some year, either Chiun or Remo or Remo's followers would make Mr. Gordons's methods known. And then the House of Sinanju would return to the wealth of America.

  But not now. Now was a time to run. Let Mr. Gordons have his decade or generation or century. There Were other markets for Sinanju.

  Chiun made note of where the metal spur had been placed, saw it had not punctured Remo's skin, and put it in his own kimono for keeping and examination. It might have come from Mr. Gordons. In that case it was worth examining.

  As the plane powered into the sky, the package Chiun had addressed was picked up by the U.S. Postal Service. It was headed toward a sanitarium in Rye, New York, called Folcroft.

  There any one of hundreds of electronic technicians could have told the Master of Sinanju that if he wanted to escape from the man who gave him that metal spur, he should have given it to the first passing stranger.

  Provided the stranger was going to another part of the world.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Morris "Moe" Alstein owned the only bar on Chicago's South Side that lost money. He had bought it in the 1960s when it was a dowdy neighborhood tavern that regularly gave its owner a healthy $40,000 a year off the top and another $40,000 to $50,000 from non-taxable ancillary rights l
ike numbers and loansharking and bookmaking.

  Moe Alstein's renovators tore out the rotting wood molding, swept away the sawdust on the floor and installed an elegant mahogany bar, hidden lighting, new bathrooms, fine tables, new walls, a new inlaid floor, broke down walls to give his customers more space, built a stage and with the aid of a talent scout and a hot new young emcee, Alstein managed to turn around the financial picture to an initial loss of $247,000 the first year and $40,000 each ensuing year. Some attributed this loss to a change of market direction—that is, he lost the regular customers and did not replace them with others. That is what people said publicly.

  Privately, they might tell very close friends with tight mouths that Moe's habits might have something to do with his losses. Moe liked pistols, and in the basement of the Eldorado Spa, changed from Murray's, he had a pistol range. He would practice there daily. The trouble started when he moved the basement range to the stage. He made it part of the floor-show. To show how good he was, he shot earrings off customers and glasses out of hands. But customer loyalty was fickle in Chicago's South Side. Even though Moe "never fucking hit anyone," the clientele dwindled.

  Fortunately, Moe had an alternate profession that compensated for the bar's losses. Which was what Mr. Gordons wished to speak to him about that morning.

  "I don't know you," said Moe to the gently-smiling man with the neatly combed sandy-blond hair and the right arm that moved properly but seemed slightly lower than his left.

  "My name is Mr. Gordons and I'm sorry I cannot offer you a drink but this is your establishment and it is incumbent upon you to offer me a drink."

  "All right, whaddya want?"

  "Nothing, thank you, I do not drink. I wish you to attempt to kill someone with your pistol."

  "Hey, whaddya, out of your head?" said Moe Alstein. Moe was slight and shorter than this man. His eyes were sharp blue and his face pinched like a stretched cellophane bag. His eyes did not trust the bland features of this man but even if they had, he wasn't going to do contract work for someone who came in off the street.