“Get in the car,” said the man with the hat. Enough was enough.
“After you,” said Chiun and the man with the Palm Beach hat did not notice anything and did not really feel anything and then he was being propelled over the old man’s head, toward the open waiting door of the car. He slammed into its front seat. His head hit the head of the driver and his body slammed down atop the barrel of the shotgun. The driver’s head snapped back and his finger jerked the trigger involuntarily. The shotgun went off with a muffled roar.
A red whoosh of flame darted out of the car. Pellets kicked up dirt around Remo and Chiun’s feet.
“Hey, fella, careful,” said Remo. “Somebody could get hurt.” He turned around to see if anyone had paid attention to the shotgun blast. The third man was now standing behind him, a .45 in his hand.
“In the car.”
“In the car?” said Remo. “Right, in the car.”
The third man went over Remo’s head and landed atop the other two hulks in the front seat. But Remo did not notice that because he saw two sheriff’s deputies approaching him.
“Oh, oh,” said Remo. “Let’s get out of here. Get in the car, Chiun.”
“You too?” said Chiun.
“Please, Chiun, get in the car.”
“As long as you say please. Remembering that we are coequal partners.”
“Right, right,” said Remo.
Chiun was in the back seat of the Eldorado and Remo behind the wheel. The sheriff’s deputies, he could see through the window, were closer now, starting to walk faster in the manner of police who aren’t sure anything wrong has been done but by God they don’t want anybody to go leaving the scene of the crime.
Remo chucked one of the groggy squirming bodies into the backseat.
“No,” said Chiun firmly. “I will not have them back here.”
“Why me, God?” said Remo. He shoved the remaining quarter-ton of flesh against the passenger’s door, put the car in gear, and drove off. For a moment, in his rearview mirror, he could see the sheriff’s men looking at him driving away, only slightly interested. Then his view was blocked as the body from the backseat was reinserted by Chiun into the front.
He drove out along a dirty road that crisscrossed through cornfields, feeling pretty good. The last Mojave demonstration by Fielding had lost much of its front–page space to the violence at the demonstration site; this time he had prevented that. It was the least one could do for a man who was going to save the world from hunger and starvation.
The man in the Palm Beach hat was the first to regain control of himself. Surprisingly, he found his gun still in his hand and he fought his way out of the mass of arms and legs and pointed the automatic at Remo. “Okay, bright eyes, now pull over to the side and stop.”
“Chiun,” said Remo.
“No,” said Chiun. “I will not soil my hands with anyone who defames the good name of Rad Rex, brilliant star of As the Planet Revolves.”
“C’mon, Chiun, act right,” Remo said.
“No.”
“This isn’t the one who said anything about Rad Rex,” lied Remo.
“Well, you can’t blame me for making such a mistake. Everybody knows all you whites look alike. But…”
The man with the .45, past whom the bickering had drifted, never had an opportunity to witness its outcome. Before he could move, before he could speak again to warn this skinny punk at the wheel to pull over, there was a slight pain in his head. It never felt like more than the irritation of a mosquito’s sting and he never felt anything again as Chiun’s iron index finger went through his temple into his brain.
The man dropped back onto the pile of bodies.
“You lied, Remo,” said Chiun. “I could tell he was the one of the evil mouth, because his head is empty.”
“Never trust a white man. Particularly a coequal partner.”
“Yes,” said Chiun. “But as long as I am at it—” He leaned over the back of the front seat and while Remo drove, sent the other two men to join their companion, then sat back in his seat contentedly.
Remo waited until he had gotten out of sight of the demonstration area, then parked the car under a tree. He left the motor running.
“C’mon, Chiun, we’d better get back. There just might be more back there, with Fielding as their target.”
“There are no more,” said Chiun.
“You can’t be sure. Somehow, they made us as Fielding’s bodyguards or something. Probably they think if they got rid of us, they get a clear shot at Fielding.”
“There are no more,” Chiun insisted. “And why would anyone attempt to harm Fielding?”
“Chiun, I don’t know,” said Remo. “Maybe they’re trying to get the secret of Fielding’s miracle grains. Steal the formulas and sell them. There are evil people in the world, you know.”
“Remember you said that…partner,” said Chiun.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE LAST TIME JOHNNY DEUCE had looked forward with anticipation to the six o’clock news had been when the United States Senate was investigating organized crime and he’d had a chance to laugh at his old friends.
They had come on in a parade. People he had given advice to, people he had tried to straighten out, but for all the new clothes and even though they didn’t carry weapons anymore and even though they had all wrapped themselves up in corporate blankets, they still had the old Mustache Pete mentality. So they wound up providing six o’clock news fodder for America while Johnny Deuce was home in his living room, trying to keep his wife’s hand away from him and laughing aloud.
But this time the news was no laughing matter, not because of what was on it but because of what wasn’t on it. There was a long glowing story of the Fielding demonstration in Ohio. A made-up newscaster came on in a shot taken next to the freshly planted field and talked glowingly about the great benefits to mankind from the miracle grains. He was an Ohio–based newsman and in a burst of parochial pride, he pointed out that today’s planting had been a marked change from the one in the Mojave that had been sullied by still–unexplained violence.
Johnny Deuce stopped listening when the newscaster began to blather about America living up to its responsibilities to provide sustenance for the world.
He heard the weather forecast call for bad weather and then he sat in his small room thinking and it was only when the eleven o’clock news came on that he rose himself from his reverie and focused his attention again on the screen.
But there was just the same newscast. No reports of violence, no reports of Fielding’s bodyguards being killed, and as he listened Johnny Deuce wasted no time coming to a truthful conclusion. The three men who had been sent to do in the hard–faced white man and the old Oriental were dead.
If they had succeeded, their work would have been on the news. That was the deductive evidence; the inductive evidence was that they had not called and Johnny Deuce had told them they had better call by seven P.M., no later, or they would have their balls filled with sand.
He let the sound of the rest of the newscast drone on as he lapsed immediately back into the rest state of the last five hours, sitting languidly while his brain whirred along, formulating his plans, setting up his attack, and this time in his mind making sure it would work.
He was satisfied and convinced and he snapped out of it just long enough to catch the end of the newscast. The weatherman was on. He was a thin man with a mustache and a half-a-bag on. The forecast was still for rain.
CHAPTER NINE
AT THE SAME TIME Johnny Deussio was thinking, Remo was bringing his mighty intellect to bear upon much the same problem: killing.
Who could want Fielding’s formula so badly that they would try to get it by first disposing of Remo and Chiun? Since the magic Wondergrains were virtually going to be given away, who would gain by stealing their secret?
Despite the accumulated mass of scar tissue and raw knuckles that he and Chiun had been running into, Remo’s instincts told him th
at it was not a mob venture. The mob had other things to worry about besides farming. Loan-sharking was quite profitable enough; so was prostitution, drugs, gambling, and politics, the usual kinds of crime in America.
No. Not the mob. Remo decided that some foreign power was behind the violence that seemed to dog Fielding’s steps. His first suspicion was India, but Chiun scoffed at that suggestion when Remo made it.
“India would never hire killers, even fat ones, to try to do a job. They would not want to waste a few thousand of your dollars when it could be used to help build more nuclear weapons.”
“You sure?” asked Remo.
“Of course. India would try to get the formula exclusively for itself by praying for it.”
Remo nodded and lay back down on the sofa in their Dayton hotel room. Who else, if not India? Who else had been at the demonstration?
Of course.
Cuba. Maria Gonzales.
“Chiun,” said Remo again.
Chiun was sitting in the center of the hotel living room rug, staring at his fingertips which were steepled together.
“That is my name,” he said, not taking his eyes from his fingers.
“Do you know where that Cuban woman is staying? Did she tell you?”
“I am not in the habit of finding out the hotel rooms of strange women,” said Chiun.
“I don’t know. You kept getting between the two of us, and I was beginning to think that maybe you were ditching Barbra Streisand for her.”
“Be cautious,” said Chiun, resenting any levity about the great unrequited love of his life. “Even coequal partners must speak with discretion.”
“You don’t know where she is?”
“She is a Cuban. If she is still in town, she will be in the cheapest hotel.”
“Thank you.”
The desk clerk downstairs told Remo that the Hotel Needham was the cheapest hotel in town. In fact, not only the cheapest but the dirtiest.
When Remo called the Hotel Needham, he found that indeed a Maria Gonzales was registered there. In fact there were three Maria Gonzaleses registered there.
“This one’s kind of good-looking.”
“Most of the girls registered here are kind of good-looking,” said a man’s oily voice over the phone. “Course it all depends on your taste. Now if you want my advice…”
“No, I don’t think I do. This chick would have checked in just today.”
“I’m not in the habit of giving out such information,” the voice said as the verbal oil congealed.
“I’m in the habit of giving out fifty–dollar bills to people who tell me what I want to know,” said Remo.
“Maria Gonzales checked in today into Room 363. She’s different from our other two Marias. She’s a Cuban; the other two are spicks. We don’t get many Cuban broads around here but I guess she hasn’t had a chance to establish herself yet because there haven’t been any phone calls or visits or…”
“I’ll be right over,” said Remo. “I’ve got fifty for you.”
“I’ll wait. How will I recognize you?”
“My fly will be zipped.”
The desk clerk at the Hotel Needham had looks to match his voice. He was fifty struggling to look only forty-nine; 195 dressed to look 150; short dressed to look tall, balding but coiffed to look hairy. If Brillo strands coated with spar varnish could be called hair.
“Yeah?” he said to Remo.
“I’m Pete Smith, looking for my brother John. You got a John Smith registered here?”
“Twelve of them.”
“Yeah, but he’d have his wife with him,” said Remo.
“All twelve,” said the clerk.
“Yeah, but she’s a blond in a miniskirt, good legs, big boobs, and wears too much makeup.”
“Ten of them.”
“She’s got the clap.”
“Not here,” said the clerk. “This is a clean place.”
“Good,” said Remo. “That’s really what I wanted to find out. My brother’s not registered here. I just wanted to look the place over. IBM might want the grand ballroom for its next annual stockholders’ meeting.”
“Listen, buddy, do you want something?”
“I want to give you fifty dollars.”
“I’m listening, I’m listening.”
Remo peeled a fifty from a cluster of bills in his pocket and dropped it on the desk. “Maria Gonzales still in room 363?”
The clerk put the money away before answering. “Yes. Want me to announce you?”
“No, don’t bother. Surprises are always such fun, aren’t they?”
From inside room 363, martial music was playing. Remo knocked loudly to be heard over it.
He knocked again. The music dropped suddenly in volume. From behind the door, a voice asked: “Who is it?”
“Cuba Libre,” said Remo.
The door opened cautiously, still fastened with a chain. Maria peered through the crack. Remo smiled.
“Hi. Remember me?”
“If you have come to apologize for the behavior of your countrymen, you are too late,” she sputtered.
“Aaaah, what happened?” asked Remo solicitously.
She glanced downward toward Remo’s groin. “At least you know how to behave yourself. You have learned manners from the grand Oriental. You may come in. But behave yourself.”
“What’s happened to make you mad at us?” asked Remo, stepping inside the room.
Maria was wearing the same clothes she had worn that afternoon, a khaki miniskirt and khaki blouse, both of them filled just right. She looked like a security guard at the local Playboy Club.
She turned toward Remo and put her hands on her hips in a gesture of pout. “I have been here but four hours. Already five men have been pounding on my door, demanding that I let them in. They say unspeakable things. One displayed himself.”
“Exposed,” corrected Remo.
“That is correct. What kind of country is this where men do that?”
“They think you’re a different Maria Gonzales. A hooker.”
“What is this hooker?”
“A prostitute.”
“Ah, yes. The prostitutes. We had them before Fidel.”
“You had sugar harvests back then too.”
“Ah, but now we have the dignity.”
“And the empty belly.”
Maria started to answer, stopped, then nodded abruptly. “Right. And that is why I am here. And you can help me because you are a most important Yankee.”
“How do you know that?”
“The Oriental. He told me, as a Third World comrade, that you were very important. You were in charge of keeping the Constitution safe. He said he was your coequal partner but no one believed he was as important as you because his skin was yellow. Are you in charge of keeping the Constitution safe?”
“Absolutely,” said Remo. “I keep it in a footlocker under my bed.”
“Then you must tell me how Mister Fielding does his miracle growing.” Maria’s face was an open appeal.
“You really want to know, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Why? Wondergrain’s almost going to be given away.”
“Almost is not good enough. My country is a very poor country, Remo…it is Remo, isn’t it? Any cost is too high a cost. All our funds are committed. We owe our souls to the Russians. Can we now give our bodies to the American Yankees? That is why I was sent, to try to find out how Fielding does this thing he is going to do.”
“Would you be willing to kill for it?” asked Remo.
“I would be willing to do anything for it. It is for Cuba…for Fidel…for the memory of Che…for the socialist revolution.”
She raised her hands and began to unbutton her khaki blouse. When it was open she pulled it back exposing her breasts. She smiled at Remo. “I would do anything for the secret. Even be your hooper.”
“Hooker.”
“Right. Hooker.” Maria sat back onto the bed, removed her
blouse, then arranged herself in a prone position as if she were setting a vase with flowers. “I will be your hooker and then you will tell me your secrets. Is it a deal?”
Remo hesitated a moment. If she had killed people already to find out Fielding’s secrets, why would she be trying to screw it out of Remo? On the other hand, if she had nothing to do with the killings, then Remo would be taking advantage of her by pretending to know something about the formula that he did not know.
Remo wrestled with his conscience, which maintained its unblemished scoreless record.
“You’ll go to any lengths, won’t you?”
“If the lengths, it is depraved, I will do it,” said Maria, licking her lips as she had seen done in American films before they stopped being shown in Cuba. “I will do anything for the formula. Even go to the lengths.”
Remo sighed. No wonder she and Chiun seemed to get along so well. When they chose, neither could understand English.
“All right,” said Remo. “To the lengths!”
Remo figured himself a winner by at least twenty-six lengths. This was preordained by some of the first training he had received when he entered the world of CURE and Chiun.
Women, Chiun had warned Remo on that long-ago occasion, were warm-bodied animals, like cows, and as cows would give more milk if they were kept contented, women would give less aggravation if kept in the same state. However, he explained, a woman did not get contentment as a man did, through the pleasures of his intellect or his work. Women must be kept contented through heart and emotions.
“That means they’re less worthy than men?” said Remo.
“That means you are stupid. No. Women are not less than men. They are different from men. In many ways, they are more than men. For instance. One can frighten an angry man. But no one has ever been able to frighten an angry woman. See. That is called an example. Now. Stop interrupting. Women must be made content through heart, through emotion. In this country of yours, that means by sex because women are not allowed to have any other emotions in this country, lest they put her name in the newspapers and everyone will point her out as a freak.”
“Yeah, yeah, right, I’ve got it,” said Remo who did not have any of it.
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