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  The mayor laughed heartily, and alone. He went on. "They have selected Yuma out of dozens of American cities as the location for Bart's new film. You may now ask questions, if you'd like."

  There was an embarrassing silence. The print press looked at their notebooks. The TV crews hesitated. Bronzini had seen it all over the world. His reputation intimidated even the usually bold TV crews.

  "Maybe I should be asking the questions," Bronzini quipped. "Like, how hot does it get this time of year?" No one even smiled. He hated it went they didn't smile.

  Finally a pert blond who identified herself as the entertainment reporter for one of the TV stations piped up. "Mr. Bronzini, tell us about your new film."

  "It's a Christmas movie. It's about-"

  "And what do you think of Yuma so far?"

  "It's hard to form much of an impression when all you've seen is the airport and the mayor's office." Bronzini beamed sheepishly. He waited for a follow-up question, but they shifted their attention to Jiro Isuzu. "Mr. Isuzu. Why did you pick Yuma?"

  "It perfect for our needs," Isuzu said.

  "Mr. Isuzu, do you think that Americans will go to see a Japanese-made movie?"

  "Mr. Isuzu, how do you feel about the current Japanese economic dominance in the Pacific?"

  "Mr. Isuzu . . ."

  And so it went. The press rattled on about every conceivable angle that had to do with Yuma and several that did not. When their stories ran, some within hours, they would all play up the banal local angle. Nowhere would it be mentioned that this role was a significant departure from Bartholomew Bronzini's flex-and-pecs screen roles. Nowhere would it be mentioned that he had written the script. He was lucky if his two declarative-sentence comments would be reported accurately.

  He hated it when they did that, too.

  Finally the TV people began packing up their equipment and the print reporters shuffled out of the room, casting curious glances at him over their shoulders. He overheard one woman tell another, "Can you believe it? He's going to make over a hundred million on this movie and he can barely speak three words in a row."

  After the reporters had gone, the mayor of Yuma came up to him and shook his hand again.

  "You were wonderful, Bart. Mind if I call you Bart?"

  "Go ahead. You're already in practice."

  "Thank you, Bart. I'm up for reelection next year and this is going to kick off my campaign like a football."

  "You have my vote," Bronzini joked.

  "Oh, are you registered in this city?"

  "It was a little joke," Bronzini told him. "Very little." The mayor looked blank. His expression wondered, "Can this Neanderthal make jokes?" Bronzini hated that expression.

  "Oh," Mayor Cloves said. "A joke. Well, it's good to see that you have a sense of humor."

  "It's an implant," Bronzini said.

  "You wirr see to permissions?" Jiro Isuzu put in quickly.

  "Yes, yes, of course. And let me be the first to welcome your production to our fair city."

  Bronzini shook the mayor's hand in relief. That was it? A photo op? Maybe this wouldn't be so terrible. "Oh, before you go," the mayor said quickly, "could I have your autograph?"

  "Sure," Bronzini said, accepting a pen and a photograph of himself torn from a fan magazine.

  "Who do I make it out to?" he asked.

  "Make it out to me. But it's for my daughter."

  "Yeah," Bronzini sighed as he autographed the photo. He signed it, "To the mayor of Yuma, from his good friend Arnold Schwarzenegger."

  The mayor read it without batting an eye. Just as Bronzini had known he would.

  Out on the street, Bronzini growled a question to Jiro Isuzu. "Is that it? Am I outta here now?"

  "No, we have many more visits to make. First we go to hotel."

  "Why? Is the cleaning staff demanding a lock of my hair?" Bronzini said, hopping onto his bike. Bartholomew Bronzini followed the van to the Shilo Inn, an elegant adobe hotel on Route 8. The lobby entrance was blocked by marching picketers. They carried placards and signs reading "Bronzini Unfair."

  "Bronzini Is Un-American."

  "Bronzini the Traitor." One man carried a Grundy III poster showing Bronzini, his long hair held in place by a headband. The tagline read "Bronzini Is Grundy." The last word was crossed out and replaced with the word "Grungy."

  "What the hell is this?" Bronzini shouted.

  "Union," Isuzu told me. "They protest."

  "Damn it. This is supposed to be a union film."

  "It is. Japanese union."

  "Listen, Jiro. I can't do a nonunion film. My name will be mud. I'm a hero to the working guy."

  "That was before Ringo V, when Ringo kirred in boxing match. But you are stirr big hero in Nippon. Your future is there. Not here. Americans tire of you."

  Bronzini put his hands on his hips. "Stop beating around the bush, Isuzu. Why don't you come out and speak your mind?"

  "So sorry. Not understand. Have spoken mind."

  "You don't understand. I'm not turning my back on everything I represent. I'm Bartholomew Bronzini, the rags-to-riches personification of the American dream."

  "Those are Americans," Isuzu said, indicating the marchers. "They do not carr you hero."

  "That's because they think I've double-crossed them. And I won't. I'm done here." He started for his bike.

  "Schwarzenegger wirr do movie for ress," Isuzu called after him. "Perhaps better."

  "Then get that Black Forest bozo," Bronzini barked. "We wirr. And we will pay his sarary out of rawsuit damages from suing you for breach of contract." Bronzini froze with his hands touching the handlebars of his bike. One leg was poised to mount the saddle. He looked like he was doing an imitation of a dog about to relieve himself against a fireplug.

  The thought of Sehwarzenegger being paid out of Bronzini's own pocket stopped him cold. Reluctantly he lowered his leg. He walked back to Jiro Isuzu. The Japanese's composed face looked faintly smug.

  "You understand now?"

  "Jiro, I'm starting not to like you."

  "Production office in this hoter. We must go there. Many terephone carr to make. Much problem to work out if we are to start shooting on schedule." He pronounced it "sked-oo."

  Bronzini looked at the circling pickets. "I've never crossed a picket line in my life."

  "Then we go in side door. Come."

  Jiro Isuzu started off, trailed by a cluster of functionaries. Bronzini looked at the picketers, who were so busy shouting slogans that they weren't aware that the , object of their displeasure was standing only yards away. Never one to back away from a challenge, Bronzini decided to reason with them. He started for the picket line, when a heavyset man noticed him.

  "Hey, there he is!" the man shouted. "The Steroid Stallion himself. Bronzini!"

  The catcalls followed. "Boo!" they hooted. "Bronzini! Go back to Japan."

  "Hear me out," Bronzini shouted. His words were drowned out. The picketers-they belonged to IATSE, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees -interpreted Bronzini's angry face to suit themselves. "Did you hear what he called us?" one cried indignantly. That did it. They started for him en masse.

  Bronzini stopped. He folded his arms. He was going to hold his ground. What was the worst they could do? The worst they could do, it turned out, was to surround him in a shouting, haranguing circle.

  "Down with Bronzini! The Bronze Bambino has feet of clay!"

  "Listen to me," Bronzini shouted. "I just want to talk to you about this. I think we can reason this through." He was wrong. They were not listening. Camera crews were moving up to get a picture of the worldrenowned Bartholomew Bronzini held hostage by two dozen protesters armed only with placards.

  When the cameras started taping, one of the protesters called out, "Hey, watch this!"

  He whacked Bronzini with his placard. The broomstick broke against Bronzini's muscular shoulder. He barely felt it, but that didn't matter. Bartholomew Bronzini had grown up in a roug
h Italian neighborhood where turning the other cheek was the kiss of death.

  He decked his assailant with a roundhouse right. The protesters turned into a mob. They descended on Bronzini like a fury. Bronzini returned blow for blow. He started laying protesters out on the blacktop of the parking lot. A wild grin cracked his Sicilian face. This was something he understood. A bare-knuckled fight.

  But as he mashed a man's nose flat, he wondered if he wasn't on the wrong side of this brawl.

  The question was answered for him when the horde of Japanese men piled out of the lobby. Some of them, on orders from an excited Jiro Isuzu, pulled pistols from under their coats. Bodyguards.

  "Stop them," Isuzu shrieked. "Protect Bronzini. Now!" The bodyguards waded in. The protesters turned on them too. Bronzini tried pushing his way clear of the mob, but there were too many of them. He took one of the protesters by the throat.

  Then a shot rang out. The man in Bronzini's metallic grasp gasped once and went limp. He fell. His head made a cracking sound when it hit the ground.

  "What the fuck!" Bronzini yelled. "Who fired that shot? Who?"

  It was obvious in another moment. Bronzini felt something yank on his belt. He struggled. It was one of the Japanese bodyguards.

  "Let go of me," Bronzini snarled. "He's hurt bad."

  "No. You come."

  "I said let me-"

  Bronzini never got the next word out. The sky and ground swapped perspectives. He was suddenly on his back. The shock blew the air out of his lungs. Stunned, he wondered if he had caught a stray bullet. And as other gunshots sounded in the background, he was lifted by several husky Japanese and dumped into the waiting Nishitsu van.

  He was whisked from the Shilo Inn at high speed. "What happened?" Bronzini asked the hovering Jiro Isuzu in a dazed voice.

  "Judo. Necessary."

  "The fuck."

  Chapter 4

  It was dawn when Remo Williams was dropped off in front of his Rye, New York, home by taxi.

  Remo handed the driver a crisp hundred dollar bill. "Merry Christmas," Remo said. "Keep the change."

  "Hey, Merry Christmas to you too, buddy. You must be expecting a whale of a holiday yourself."

  "Nah. I'm on an unlimited expense account."

  "Thanks just the same," the cabby said, pulling off. It was not snowing in Rye, New York. The storm that had blanketed New England had passed through New York State the previous day. The town had already cleared the sidewalk with a small tractor snow blower. Its caterpillar tracks had left their unmistakable imprints. But Remo's walkway was buried.

  Remo placed one foot on the crust of snow that covered the walk. His breathing changed. His arms seemed to lift slightly from his sides as if they were filled with air instead of bone and blood and muscle.

  Remo walked across the thin frozen crust of the snow without breaking through. He felt light as a feather. He was a feather. He thought like a feather, moved like a feather, and the thin hard crust reacted to him as if each foot was a feather duster.

  Remo went in his front door with the expression of a man who had slogged through a sloppy wet snowbank in his stocking feet, not one who had executed a feat that other men would have scorned as impossible.

  Even the novelty of having a home to come back to for the first time since he joined the organization did not lift his spirits. The living room consisted of bare walls, a hardwood floor, and a big-screen TV. Two straw mats sat on the floor before the screen.

  Somehow, it was not very homey.

  Remo walked to his bedroom. It, too, was only four walls and a bare floor. A futonlike mat stretched out in one corner. His wardrobe, consisting of six pairs of chinos and an assortment of black and white T-shirts, lay neatly folded at the bottom of a closet. On ,a shelf above a cluster of empty wire hangers were racked a dozen pairs of handmade Italian leather loafers.

  From the other bedroom came a series of long, drawnout sounds, like a goose honking.

  "Braaawwwwkkkk!"

  "Hnnnnkkkkkkk!" Snoring.

  Remo decided he wasn't sleepy. Turning on his heel, he made for the door.

  Remo later pulled up in front of an all-night drugstore, asked the woman behind the counter if she accepted credit cards, and when he got a yes in return, he went straight to the Christmas-decoration shelf There were more bulbs, candy canes, and tinsel than he could carry at one time, so he took hold of the shelf at each end and applied pressure. The crack was instantaneous. Remo carried the entire shelf to the cash register.

  "Oh, my God," the girl said.

  "Put all this stuff on my card," Remo said, slipping the plastic onto the glass counter.

  "You broke the shelf."

  "Yeah. Sorry about that. Just add it to the bill." Outside, Remo set the shelf on the hood of his Buick. He opened the trunk, and balancing the shelf carefully, upended it over the open trunk. The packages rattled down the shelf like coal down a cellar chute.

  Remo tossed the shelf into a cluster of trash barrels and closed the trunk.

  His next stop was at a used-ear lot with a banner that said "Christmas Trees Cheap." The lot hadn't opened for the day, so Remo took his time examining the stock. The first one he liked looked too tall for his living room. The second left dry pine needles in his hands when he grasped one of the branches experimentally.

  Remo went through every tree on the lot and decided that if the cars for sale were in the same shape as the trees, the driving public was in mortal peril. "Nobody respects Christmas anymore," Remo growled as, one by one, he picked up the trees by their bases and, like a farmer shucking corn, stripped them of their branches with one-handed sweeps.

  Remo left a note that said, "I got carried away with the spirit of the season. Sorry. Send me a bill." He didn't sign it or leave an address.

  Disgusted, Remo next drove to the golf course that spawled behind his house. There he picked his way among the evergreens. He found a young one he liked and, kneeling beside it, felt all around the base to get a sense of its root system. When he found a weak point, he used the side of his hand to sever the root.

  By the time he was done, the evergreen came out of the frozen ground as easily as a daisy. Remo carried it to his back door over his shoulder like Paul Bunyan. He got it through the door so expertly he lost only three needles.

  Remo set the tree in one corner of the room. It balanced perfectly, even without a stand. Remo had flattened out the roots to form a natural base.

  Getting the decorations from the car, he proceeded to decorate the tree. He took his time with it. After two hours, the tightness began to leave his face and the beginning of a contented smile crinkled the corners of his deep-set eyes. In another minute he would have begun to hum "Little Drummer Boy."

  That moment never came.

  From out of the bedroom, the continued adenoidal goose honking abruptly died down, to be replaced by the rustle of silk. And then, so softly that only Remo's ears could have heard, came the shuffle of sandals.

  Chiun, Reigning Master of Sinanju, looked into the room. His eyes alighted on the lean, muscular back of his adopted son. Momentary pleasure illuminated his wise hazel orbs. Remo was home. It was good to behold him once more.

  Then he noticed what Remo was doing.

  "Pah!" he spat. "I see that it is Jesus Time again."

  "It's called Christmas," Remo said over his shoulder, "and I was just getting into the mood before you mouthed off."

  "Mouthed off!" Chiun squeaked. "I did not mouth off, whatever that is." The Master of Sinanju was old. Only his eyes looked young. He was a tiny Oriental with only smoky puffs of white hair over his ears and another wisp at his chin. He wore a yellow silk kimono. His hands were joined within its linked sleeves.

  "I did not mouth off," Chiun repeated when Remo ignored him and returned to stringing lengths of silver wire on the evergreen tree. Remo said nothing.

  "Trees belong outdoors," Chiun added.

  Remo sighed. "This is a Christmas tree. They're for indo
ors. And if you don't want to help, fine. Just stay out of my way. This is our first Christmas in our new home. I'm going to enjoy it. With or without you."

  Chiun meditated on the matter. "This tree reminds me of those magnificent ones which dot the hillsides of my native Korea," he pointed out. "The scent is very much the same."

  "Then pitch in," Remo said, mollified.

  "And you have killed it for your pagan ceremony," Chiun added harshly.

  "Keep it up, Chiun, and there won't be any presents under the tree with your name on them."

  "Presents?" Chiun gasped. "For me?"

  "Yeah. That's the tradition. I put presents under the tree for you and you put them under the tree for me." Chiun looked down at the foot of the tree. He saw no presents.

  "When?" he asked sharply.

  "What?"

  "When will these alleged presents appear?"

  "Christmas Eve. That's Sunday night."

  "You have bought them?" Chiun asked skeptically.

  "No, not yet," Remo answered vaguely.

  "I have bought none for you, you know."

  "There's time yet."

  Chiun examined Remo's tight profile curiously.

  "In past years you were not so obsessed by this Christmastime," he ventured.

  "In past years I never had to kill Santa Claus."

  "Ah," Chiun said, raising a long-nailed finger. "At last we come to the heart of the matter."

  Remo said nothing. He lifted a spindle-shaped ornament from its box and plucked straw packing from dangling silver bells.

  "Your mission," Chiun said expectantly, "it was successful?"

  "He's dead if that's what you mean." Remo reached up and pulled the flexible treetop down. He slipped the ornament over the top. When he let go, it sprang erect. The tiny bells tinkled merrily.

  "You do not look happy for one who has avenged the children of this land."

  "The killer was a child himself."

  Chiun gasped. "No! You did not kill a child. It is against everything I taught you. Children are sacred. Say this is not so, Remo."

  "He was a child in mind, not body."

  "Ah, one of the many mental defectives that populate America. It is sad. I think this stems from the hamburgers everyone devours. They destroy the brain cells."