The End of the Game td-60

by Warren Murphy

  "But Great Britain is not Sinanju," Chiun said.

  "We'll call it Sinanju. A sleepy little English village called Sinanju. We're just making the book work better. You can't have more than fifty assassins from generation to generation. Give us a break, Mr. Chiun. I don't want to force my views on you. You can do what you want. It's your book. And it's wonderful."

  "Will there be that part about the ingratitude of the white?" Chiun asked.

  "Of course. I loved it. We all loved it. Speaking of which, let's get to some love interest. Bipsey Boopenberg in Binding had some problems because there was no strong woman character. So we have Nazi for Sub Rights and we have a woman for Binding. A strong woman. Let's say she's on an island. Along with her crippled husband. And she's not getting along with him. And the Nazi murderer falls in love with her and she realizes she has got to stop him from getting his information to, let's say, Hitler. Why not Hitler? It was the Second World War, right? Gosh, this is wonderful."

  "You will leave in the part about the white ingratitude?"

  "Absolutely. Now Dudley Sturdley in Accounting had some problems too. He really loved the book. But he didn't like the opening about this Korean fishing village that couldn't support itself so the best capable man went out to hire himself out as an assassin-- a tradition there ever since the dawn of history. Let's keep in line with our modern approach. Let's have the Nazi being discovered by a British housewife and then he kills her and that starts the whole book."

  "I liked the dawn of history," said Chiun.

  "So do I. It's poetic as hell." The fist again punched at the air. "But Accounting said it just doesn't grab. This isn't a poetry book. This is a history of a house of assassins."

  "And you will leave in that part about the ingratitude of whites?"

  "Absolutely," said the senior editor. "Loved it."

  "All right," said Chiun with a sigh.

  "And let's have a new title. The History of Sinanju certainly isn't a grabber. What about something to do with death?"

  "Never. We are not killers. We are assassins."

  "Well, you've got Sinanju running through the whole book. Do we have to put it on the cover too? Don't you want the book to sell?"

  Chiun thought for a moment.

  "All right," he said.

  "Do you have a good title?" she asked.

  "If it is not Sinanju, I don't care," Chiun said.

  "I like something mysterious," the senior editor said. "What about The Needle's Eye?"

  "Wasn't there a white book by that name?"

  "Something like that," she said, "and it sold beautifully. You can't beat success. We've been copying success for years now."

  She did not mention that when her company had a chance to buy Eye of the Needle, it had turned it down because it wasn't Gone with the Wind. It had turned down Gone with the Wind because it wasn't Huckleberry Finn. It had turned down Huckleberry Finn because it wasn't Ben Hur.

  It had published none of those books, but it had copied them all instantly.

  Bingham Publishing produced more books every year that did not make money than any other house in the publishing business. When the annual report came in showing it had lost money, they tried to make up for the deficits by increasing the number of books. This increased the deficits. Someone suggested they publish fewer books. That person was instantly fired for stupidity. Everyone knew the way to show a profit was to publish more and more books, even if they all lost money.

  Bingham had once published a fifteen-year-old New York City telephone directory because the phone company had called it the most well-distributed book of all time.

  Bingham put a swastika on the cover, called it Stranger's Lust Nest, because sex sold, put four million copies in the stores, and were honestly amazed when 3,999,999 were returned unbought.

  "I understand this business," the senior editor told Chiun. "We've got a wonderful book here. All we have to do is make these few wonderful changes."

  "And you will leave in white ingratitude for the teachings of Sinanju?" asked Chiun.

  "Of course. If it fits."

  "If?" said Chiun.

  "Well, you know you just can't throw in an Oriental in a Nazi book."

  "You have had success with Nazi books?" Chiun asked.

  "Actually, no. We haven't. But others have. A lot of success. Wonderful success."

  "If you have no success with them, why don't you publish something that is not a Nazi book?" Chiun asked.

  "And go against success?" the editor said, shaking her head in amazement. Her red pencil poised over the paper.

  Chiun reached a long-nailed hand across the desk and removed, with grace, his manuscript.

  "The House of Sinanju is not for sale," he said. And then, with the nails working in vibrating rhythms, he removed the red marks of the white woman.

  "Wait a second. We can go along with a few of your ideas if you feel strongly about them."

  But Chiun was already on his feet. He knew he already had made too many compromises with this manuscript, the greatest being that it was not written in Hu, the Korean dialect of Ung poetry. No more compromises.

  He tucked the manuscript under his arm and was escorted out through the main entrance by a younger woman who told him of her ambition to become a senior editor also. She had one obstacle she had to overcome, however. She kept suggesting that Bingham Publishing buy books that she enjoyed reading.

  "And?" asked Chiun.

  "They told me to ignore that feeling. If it would bore drying paint and not be believed by anyone over four and treat every sex act like the pivotal point of universal history, then we should buy it. Otherwise, no."

  "Did you read The History of Sinanju?" Chiun asked.

  The young girl nodded. "I loved it. I got to understand something about history and how the human body can be used and how people can rise above themselves if they learn. I couldn't put it down."

  "So you wanted to buy it?" Chiun asked.

  "No, I voted against buying it. I'm moving up."

  "That makes no sense," Chiun said.

  "Authors are unreasonable," she said huffily. "You all forget that publishing is a business."

  "You really will make a wonderful senior editor," Chiun said. "You will have an office no bigger than one of those telephone places."

  "You really think so?" the young woman gushed.

  "Without doubt," Chiun said.

  "How do you know? Why do you think so?"

  "Because you make them look intelligent," Chiun said.

  Remo had left a note for Chiun at the hotel. "Be back in a few days if the world is still here."

  Chiun held the note in his hand. A rude missive. Typical of Remo.

  He went to one of his steamer trunks and took out more long sheets of rice paper and an old-fashioned pen and inkwell.

  And as he sat on the floor to write about these latest ingratitudes to the Master of Sinanju, he thought to himself: Maybe a television mini-series. If someone would air that show about that supposed Ninja master who marched around in a ridiculous black costume in broad daylight, thinking that it made him invisible, then they would produce anything. At least that one had had a good title. He wondered if the producers had heard of him. He was sure they had.

  "They're on their way," Abner Buell said.

  Marcia smiled. The beautiful redhead was wearing a transparent mesh leotard. "Good," she said. "I want to watch them die."

  "You will," Buell promised. He really liked this woman.

  "And then the whole world?" she said.

  "Yes." He liked her a whole lot.

  They were very much alike, but in very different ways. Buell had grown up and become a creator and player of games. So had Marcia, but her games involved her body and the clothing she wore, and alone of all the women Buell had ever met, she was able to arouse him. That was the good cake and the icing was that she was just as cruel, just as uncaring of other people, as Buell himself.

  "I've got a game f
or the evening," she said.

  "What is it?" Buell asked.

  "You'll see," Marcia promised. She dressed and drove with Buell in one of his Mercedes sports cars into Los Angeles, where they parked the car on a side street near the Sunset Strip.

  They stood on a corner of the Boulevard as Marcia looked up and down at the flow of sodden humanity that snarled its way past them.

  "What are we waiting for?" Buell asked.

  "The right person and the right time," Marcia said.

  After a half-hour, she said to him in an excited voice: "This one who's coming."

  Buell looked up and saw a man in his early twenties weaving down the street. He had metal hanging from both ears and wore a leather vest over a bare chest. His belt was studded with chrome diamonds. He weaved as he walked and his eyes were half-closed, heavy-lidded, with the look of the alcoholic or the junkie.

  "What a swine," Buell said. "What about him?"

  "Give him money. A hundred dollars," she said.

  When the man reached them, Buell stopped him and said, "Here." He pressed a hundred-dollar bill into his hand.

  "It's about time America gave me something," the man snapped, and staggered off without even so much as a thank-you.

  Buell turned toward Marcia to see what the next step in the game was, but Marcia had gone. He saw her half a block away. She was talking to a uniformed policeman. He saw Marcia point in his general direction, and suddenly the policeman started running away from her toward Buell.

  Marcia trotted after him.

  But the policeman ran right past Buell. He drew his gun as he neared the young man in the leather vest.

  Marcia said to Buell, "Okay, let's go."

  She pulled him away from the corner back toward their car.

  "What'd you do?" he said.

  "I told that cop that you and I had just been robbed at gunpoint by that degenerate. That he had a loaded gun and threatened to kill us or anyone who stopped him. That he took a hundred dollars off us."

  She giggled.

  They were at the car door when they heard the shots. One. Two. Three.

  Marcia giggled again. "I think he resisted arrest."

  They got into the car, drove to the corner and then turned right onto Sunset Boulevard. As they drove past the scene, they saw the policeman standing, gun still drawn, over the dead body of the man Buell had given the hundred dollars to.

  "Wonderful," Buell said.

  Marcia smiled, basking in his praise.

  "What a great game," Buell said.

  "I love it," she said. "Can we play again?"

  "Tomorrow," he said. "Let's go home now and make love."

  "Okay," she said.

  "And you can wear a cowboy suit," he said.

  "Ride 'em cowboy," she said. And giggled again.

  He loved her.

  sChapter Eight

  His name was Hamuta and he sold guns, but not to everyone. He had a small shop in Paddington, a section of London with neat gardens in front of neat brick homes. It was a quiet neighborhood where no one bothered to ask Mr. Hamuta who his visitors were, even though they were sure they recognized some of them.

  Generals and dukes and earls and members of the royal household generally had familiar faces, but while many were curious if that was really so-and-so leaving Mr. Hamuta's shop, no one asked.

  One did not buy a rifle or a pistol from Mr. Hamuta by ordering one. First one had tea with Mr. Hamuta, if one could wangle an invitation. If one was of proper birth and proper connections, he might let a few retired officers know he was not averse to an afternoon tea with Mr. Hamuta. Then he would be checked far more thoroughly than candidates for the British Secret Service. Of course that was not saying much. There were stiffer requirements for getting a gas company credit card than for becoming a spy for British intelligence. But for Mr. Hamuta, one had to be absolutely able to keep one's mouth closed, no matter what one saw. No matter how revolting it was. No matter how much one wanted to cry out: "Mercy. Where is mercy in this world?"

  And if one was found acceptable, he would be told a day and a time and then he had to be on time to the second. At the prescribed hour, the door of Mr. Hamuta's shop would be open for exactly fifteen seconds. If one was even a second later than that, he would find the door locked and no one would answer.

  In the window of Mr. Hamuta's shop was one white vase which held a fresh white chrysanthemum every day. It sat on black velvet. The shop had no sign and sometimes people wanting to buy flowers would try to enter but they too found the door locked.

  Once, some burglars who were sure valuable jewels were inside the shop had broken in. Their bodies were found a month later, decomposed in a garbage dump. Scotland Yard assumed they were the refuse of just another gang rub-out until a forensic scientist examined the skulls. They had been furrowed with small marks like wormholes.

  "Say, Ralph," said the scientist to his partner in the morgue. "Do these look like wormholes to you?"

  The other pathologist took a magnifying glass to the rear of the skull and peered closely. He wore a breathing mask because the stench of a decomposing human body was perhaps the most noxious smell another human could be exposed to. Coming near a dead body on the rot would leave the stench in one's clothes. It was why pathologists always wore washable polyester suits. Death never came out of wool.

  "Too straight," Ralph finally said. "A wormhole gets into a bone by a burrowing process. It turns. These are more like small nicks."

  "Let me see, Ralph."

  He handed over the magnifying glass and his partner looked, then nodded. "Like a machine," he said.

  "Exactly, except they run into each other. There's no pattern."

  "Do you think something was thrown at these skulls?"

  "No. Too precise," Ralph said.

  "Bullets?"

  "Improbable."

  "Let's check for lead anyway."

  There was no lead, but there was platinum.

  A rounded platinum device of some sort had, with incredible precision, nicked the skulls of the victims found in the dump.

  They were identified eventually by their teeth, having been provided extensive dental care by the British taxpayer in reward for their having been caught burglarizing British homes and sent safely off to warm jail cells. They were simple criminals, no one got excited about them, and they were buried and forgotten.

  But not by those people who made a living breaking into others' homes. They understood the message. One did not enter the simple shop in Paddington with the white chrysanthemum in the window.

  Entrance was by invitation only and then only to those who were lucky enough to be considered for a weapon designed by the hands of Mr. Hamuta.

  Such as the middle-aged British lord with a friend who turned the handle of the shop door one day and found delightedly that the door actually opened.

  "Good luck, what?" he said.

  "Perhaps," said his friend, who had already bought one of Hamuta's weapons. "Hope your stomach is up for it."

  "Never had problems with my stomach," the lord harrumphed.

  When they shut the door behind them, they heard a dead bolt click like steel ramming into steel. The middle-aged lord wanted to turn and test the door to see if they could get out but his friend quickly shook his head.

  A square black lacquered table sat in the middle of the floor with three small pads set around it. The two men took off their hats and when the lord saw his friend kneel down on one of the mats, he did the same. The room was quiet and only dim light filtered in from an overhead skylight. After a while, the lord's knees began to hurt. He looked to his friend. He wanted to stand and stretch but the friend again shook his head.

  When the lord thought he would never again get feeling back into his numb legs, a squat man with eyes as black as space entered and knelt at the table. He had white hair that showed age and he stared at the lord who wanted the weapon. His eyes felt as if they could undress the lord's soul.

 
; "So you think you are worthy to kill," said Mr. Hamuta.

  "Well, I had planned on purchasing a weapon. I must say I was delighted when you considered me. So to speak. You see?"

  "So you think you are worthy to kill?" Hamuta repeated.

  The friend nodded for the lord to say yes, but all the lord wanted was a gun. He wasn't sure he wanted to kill anything. He had been thinking of something for the mantelpiece. Expensive, yes, but that was part of the beauty. And maybe in a few years he would take it down for a hunt. Major game, perhaps. But he had not thought of the gun in exactly those terms. More as an ornament.

  The friend nodded toward him again, this time with anger and tension on his face.

  "Yes, yes," said the lord.

  Hamuta clapped his hands. A woman shuffled forward in a black kimono, carrying a tea tray.

  When she had finished serving them, Hamuta said, "Would you kill her?"

  "I don't know her," the lord said. "There is no reason for me to kill her."

  "What if I told you she had served you poison?"

  "Did she?"

  "Come," said Hamuta with ill-disguised contempt. "I do not have my own wife killed and I do not serve poison. I make weapons, however, that are made to kill, not to hang upon walls. Are you worthy of a Hamuta?"

  "I was thinking of a large-caliber--"

  "He's worthy to kill," said the friend.

  Hamuta smiled and rose. The friend nudged the lord to rise too. The lord could barely stand and he swayed, waiting for the blood to get back to his stinging tingly legs. Both of them hobbled after Hamuta, who led them down three flights of steps, deep beneath the streets of Paddington, deep into British soil.

  A large room, almost the length of the main ballroom at Buckingham Palace, was dimly lit by flickering candles. The lord watched smoke rise from the candles. He saw a gentle curve to the right. The air ducts were there.

  "So you think you are worthy to kill?" Hamuta said and laughed.

  "I think so. Yes, I am," said the lord. Of course he was. Hadn't he dropped an elk in Manitoba three years ago and a rhino in Uganda the year before that? Good shot, too. Right in the neck. Of course if you shot a rhino anywhere else there was a spot of trouble because you couldn't drop him. So, yes. He was absolutely worthy to kill.