He tried to smile and even as it lit on his face, he knew it was a lopsided, sheepish smirk.
"My name is…"
"Your name is Remo," the woman said coldly. "You are an American. My name is Ludmilla. I am a Russian. I do not like Americans. You are decadent."
"Never more so than now," Remo said. "Why did you stand with your arms open?"
"Because I wanted to show you your foolish stupid decadence so that you would know the kind of idiot you are; the kind of imbecile I could make of you."
She walked away from Remo toward the door of the hotel. The bellboy scurried ahead of her to open the door, even though it was automatic and opened electronically when someone stepped on the rubber matted approach plate.
"Wait," Remo called, but the woman was gone out into the street, her very back exuding disdain for Remo. He ran to the door. It was the entrance door and the mechanical opener would not work from his side of the lobby. He used his right hand to teach it never again to stop anybody who was in a hurry to leave.
The woman was getting into a cab. The doorman went to close it after her. Gently. She was not the kind of woman after whom one slammed cab doors, even if she had not given him a tip. She had looked at him and almost smiled; it would last him the rest of the day.
Something stopped the cab door from closing. The doorman pushed harder.
"Just a minute," Remo said. He pulled the door open, extricated his left foot, then slid into the back seat of the cab and closed the door himself.
"Presumptuous bumpkin," the woman said.
"None other," said Remo. "Driver, take us anywhere at all, just as long as it takes a long time."
The driver turned. "Madame?" he said.
"Drive, I said," Remo ordered.
The driver nodded as if he was the creator and preserver of a unique moment in the history of old world charm, when actually he was wondering what kind of tip he would get out of this ride. Good looking women rarely tipped cabdrivers in Paris. And this American didn't look like a tipping tourist either.
When the cabdriver pulled away from the curb, Ludmilla said to Remo: "What do you want of me?"
"No. What do you want of me?"
"To be left alone. You can start now."
"Do you dislike all Americans equally? Or is it just me?"
"It is just you," Ludmilla said.
"Why?"
"Because you are an American spy, a killer, a…"
"Wait a minute." Remo leaned over the seat until his mouth was close to the driver's right ear. He reached up his hands and touched the bony prominences behind and below each ear. He pressed slightly as he said, "Just for a while, I'm going to do something to your ears."
The driver turned and in heavily accented English said, "I can't hear you. Something is wrong with my ears."
Remo made the okay sign and sat back. The driver continued rubbing, first his right ear, then his left, trying to restore his hearing.
"You were saying?"
"You are an American spy, a killer, a brute."
"And you?" Remo asked.
"I am the Russia spy who has come to kill you."
"Do I get my choice of ways to die?" Remo asked. " 'Cause I've got some great ideas."
"Only if the way is slow and painful," Ludmilla Tchernova said.
"Definitely slow," Remo said. "But I'm not much on pain."
"Too bad, American. Pain is definitely on your agenda."
"Why aren't you afraid of me?" Remo asked.
Ludmilla took a deep breath that noisily rustled the shiny fabric of her suit. Even sitting, the suit pulled tight against the curves of her body. She was so perfect she did not seem normal.
"You Americans are all fools," she repeated. "You will never hurt a woman. Cowboy mentality. I have seen all the movies."
"I've killed women," Remo said casually.
"That is because you are an indiscriminate slaughterer," Ludmilla said. "All Americans are. Remember Vietnam. Remember John Wayne. Remember Gene Autrie. Remember Clint Westwood."
"All right," said Remo, "now that I know you hate me and you're going to kill me, do I get a last request?"
"Only if it is not offensive to the state."
Breakfast, it was decided, was not offensive to the state, and Remo told the driver to stop at the nearest cafe.
The driver kept going until Remo leaned forward and made twisting pressures with his thumbs behind the driver's ears. The driver's face brightened as his hearing returned and he suddenly heard the noisy honking of Paris morning traffic, the most unruly morning traffic of all cities, the traffic noise of a populace with a hangover.
"Stop here," Remo repeated.
He and Ludmilla ate breakfast at a streetside cafe under a bright umbrella that was the finest umbrella Remo had ever seen, at a table with a dirty tablecloth that was the finest dirty tablecloth Remo had ever seen, under a bright morning sun which Gallic ingenuity had arranged at just such an angle that it shone under all the umbrellas into all the diners' eyes, and which Remo decided, after much reflection, was just the finest bright morning sun he had ever had shining in his eyes, blinding him.
Unlike most Russian visitors to Western countries who gorged themselves with food as if Russia was just a vast empty icebox, Ludmilla ate only fruits with cream. Remo sipped Vichy water and picked at steamed brussels sprouts.
"Here, American," Ludmilla said, pushing a strawberry at Remo. "Try one."
"No, thank you."
"You do not have these in America," she challenged.
"Yes, but I do not eat them."
"An egg, then? I will order you an egg."
"No eggs."
"Aha, you do not eat strawberries and you do not eat eggs. Is this your secret?"
"What secret?"
"The secret of your power to overcome some of our best men," Ludmilla said.
"No."
"Oh," she said, and put the strawberry back into her own mouth.
"It is the Vichy water," she said.
Remo shook his head.
"Then what is your secret?"
"Clean living, clean thoughts, and pure motives. Not like those two friends of yours across the street."
"Where?" she said, looking surprised with a smile. It was one of the fourteen smiles she had down perfectly honest surprise.
"Over there." Remo nodded his head toward his right shoulder.
Across the narrow side street stood two men wearing heavy blue serge suits that bagged at the knees. They also wore brown shoes, white shirts, and black ties. Each wore a hat equipped with-as a conciliatory gesture to Parisian fashion and decadence-a small red feather in the brim.
Ludmilla looked them over as if she were a butcher inspecting a hindquarter that had turned suspiciously green.
"They are gross," she said.
The two men stared back stolidly at the staring Remo and Ludmilla until they apparently discerned that they were the watchees and not the watchers and they began to shuffle their feet, light cigarettes, and stare at non-existent overhead planes.
"I thought their disguises were wonderful," Remo said. "Who'd ever suspect they weren't Parisians?"
Ludmilla threw back her head and laughed. It was another of her fourteen perfections-a smiling laugh of wild abandon. Remo fell deeper in love, and he fell deeper still when he saw the long line of her swan-like but strong throat, as her head reached back and laughed toward the sky.
When the check came, Ludmilla insisted upon paying it. "Mother Russia does not take charity," she told Remo with a knowing lift of her eyebrows. She did not tell him that it was the first check she had ever picked up in her life.
She carefully counted out French franc notes and put them into the hand of the hovering waiter who, even in the morning, was dressed in a tuxedo and carried a silver tip plate.
"There," she said, looking at the man. "That is enough."
"Surely Madame has forgotten something," he said, looking at the bills.
"No. Madame has forgotten no
thing."
"But surely, a tip?"
"There is no tip," Ludmilla said. "A waiter gets paid to wait. He gets paid by his employer, not by his customer. Why should I pay you an amount your employer does not think you are worth paying himself?"
"It is difficult to eat on a waiter's salary," the man said, still trying to smile, but his lips were pulled tightly across his teeth.
"If you wanted to be rich, perhaps you should have found some other career than being a waiter," Ludmilla suggested.
The man's eyes narrowed but the smile never wavered. "Ah, yes. But I was the wrong sex to be a courtesan."
"Keep trying, pal. You may make it yet," Remo said, standing.
"Perhaps Monsieur has something for me," the waiter tried.
Remo nodded. He picked something up from the table next to his. The waiter extended his always open, always hungry hand, palm up.
Remo ground out a cigarette on his hand. "How's that?" he said.
The waiter yelled.
Remo said, "Tell Lafayette we were here."
He walked off after Ludmilla. She did not walk, he noticed, like most Russian revolutionaries, who always seemed to have two problems: their pants were on fire, and they were trying to beat to the nearest corner a bus that traveled with the speed of light. Ludrnilla strolled like a young woman in Paris intent on giving as much as possible of the world a chance to see her.
"Before I have to kill you," she said to Remo, "I will give you the chance. Return with me to Russia. I will put in the good word for you."
"No," said Remo. "Counter-offer, You come with me to America."
Ludmilla shook her head. "It is a land of many beauties, your America. I have seen your women, your actresses and singers. They are most beautiful. Who would even see me?"
"You're a star that would shine in any heaven," Remo said.
"Yes," said Ludmilla, quickly converted to a point of view she had held all along anyway.
They walked along in silence and Remo listened to Paris. With the end of the morning rush hour traffic, the city hummed, a dull throbbing sound almost below the level of perception, but numbing the brain and senses. New York was noisy; it was a city where someone was always shouting. Paris was a city in which everyone was whispering at once, and no one was listening.
Except Remo. And out of the hum and the buzz he picked out what he wanted: the heavy clump and click of the two Russians following him, and Ludmilla.
"They're still following us," Remo said.
"Oh, those swine. They never leave one alone," Ludmilla said. "I wish they were dead."
"The wish is father to the dead," Remo said. He grabbed Ludmilla's elbow and steered her gently into an alley.
"What does that mean?" she said.
"Damned if I know," said Remo.
They were in a narrow dead end, only a half block long. It was bordered on both sides and at the end by three story high buildings that people called slums in the United States but called quaint when they arrived in Paris on a vacation to get away from the American slums.
Remo stood Ludmilla against the powdery brick wall of a building and walked across the cobblestone street to wait. There were no cars on the little alley.
The two men turned the corner, looking into the alley, then stopped. Remo winked at Ludmilla. She was looking at the two men and Remo saw her nod slightly to them. They came forward toward Remo, their hands jammed into their jacket pockets, their metal tipped heels clicking like castanets on the stones of the street.
Ludmilla fished in her gold brocade bag for a gold cigarette case. She flipped it open and extracted one cigarette, a long golden holder, and a thin golden lighter, and began assembling her smoke. A Russian scientist had reported that cigarette smoke caused the skin to age prematurely. From that day on, Ludmilla had used the long holder to keep the cigarette flame away from her face.
She watched as the men approached and stood in front of Remo, who leaned casually against the stone wall of a building.
"You are a killer," said one of them, a short stocky man with a face as memorable as a well worn patio block.
"Actually, I'm a dancer," Remo said. "If it was raining, I'd give you 'Singing in the Rain' " He looked skyward and shrugged. "Not even a "drizzle."
"You have killed many of our men," said the other man, a human built generally along the lines of a refrigerator.
"Right," said Remo, "so two more won't make any difference."
The two men pulled their hands from their pockets. Guns were in their hands.
Remo pulled their guns from their hands and then their hands from their arms and then put the two of them into the stone wall where their heads hit with matching clunks and became two more ringing endorsements of the poster there proclaiming Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité.
Ludmilla was about to flick the cigarette lighter when she heard the two men's heads hit and looked up to see them become part of the beauty that was Paris.
She ran across the street to Remo who was putting the men's guns into a sewer.
"Oh, I was so worried."
"Yeah," said Remo taking her arm and leading her back toward the main street. "I want to talk to you about that."
"About what?"
"Look, these dingoes come into the alley and you give them the high sign to go get me. Now if you're going to keep trying to kill me, it's going to be difficult to have any kind of meaningful relationship."
"It is true," Ludmilla said. She hung her head, doing abject sorrow.
"So what are we going to do?" Remo asked. "Seeing as how we're in love."
Ludmilla looked up brightly. "Suppose I only try to kill you on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays?"
Remo shook his head. "Naah, it'll never work. Too complicated. I have trouble remembering days and things."
Ludmilla nodded, understanding fully the immensity of that problem.
"You understand," she said, "that the only reason these people came after you was so that I could see you in action."
"I figured something like that."
"So I could learn your secret," she said.
"Right."
"You are awesome."
"Well, when I'm at my peak, I'm pretty good," Remo allowed. "Look." He stopped on the street and faced the young Russian woman, taking her elbows in his hands. "Just what is your mission? Is it to kill me or find out how I work?"
"Find out how you work. Then others can kill you."
"Okay, then it's solved. You do anything to try to find out how I work. But don't try to kill me. Fair?"
"I have to think about it," she said. "It may be just a dirty capitalist trick to try to stay alive."
"Trust me," Remo said, looking hard into her violet eyes with a look that had never failed before.
"I trust you, Remo," the woman said. "I will not try to kill you."
"Okay, then that's settled."
"But others might," Ludmilla said. It was not a prediction, it was an insistence. She would not enter into this pact with Remo unless other Russians had the right to try to kill him. After all, what did Remo take her for? A coat-turn?
"I don't care who else tries to kill me. I just don't want you trying it."
"Agreed," Ludmilla said. She extended her hand and shook Remo's formally, as if they were two diplomats who had spent months working out a meaningless, unworkable agreement of no interest to anyone but themselves.
"Okay. What do we do now?"
"We go to my hotel," Ludmilla said.
"And?"
"And we make beautiful, exquisite love. Seeing as how we are in love." Ludmilla smiled, the smile of awakening youth. It was one she did very well.
Remo nodded, as if making love were the most logical conclusion to an armistice that anyone could have devised. Together, arm in arm, they walked off. Remo looking forward, for the first time in years, to making love, and Ludmilla thinking of how she was going to find out the secret of his power so someone could kill this American maniac.
&nbs
p; CHAPTER EIGHT
It was twenty-four hours since he'd left, but when Remo returned to his hotel room, Chiun was standing in the same position before the same set of yellow draperies, staring out at the same bright sun.
"It is all right," Chiun said without turning.
"What is all right?"
"It is all right that you are gone all night and you never let me know anything and I stay awake wondering all night if you are well or dead in an alley someplace. They have a Pig Alley in this city where people die all the time and how did I know you weren't there? Especially since they named it after you?"
"I wasn't there."
Chiun turned and waved a long nailed index finger in triumph. "Aha, but did I know that? Did you care enough to tell me?"
"No," said Remo honestly.
"Ingrate," said Chiun.
"True," said Remo. Nothing was going to spoil this day, the first day of the rest of his life, not even a bitching, carping, kvetching Chiun.
Remo smiled.
Chiun smiled.
"Ah, you are joking with me. You wanted to let me know you were well, but you couldn't? That's it, isn't it?"
"No," said Remo. "I haven't thought about you since yesterday morning. I didn't care whether you were worried or not. By the way, if you couldn't sleep, what's your sleeping mat doing out?"
"I tried to sleep, but I couldn't, I worried so much. I almost went out looking for you. You can see. The mat is barely wrinkled."
Remo said, "You could dance on it for eight hours and not wrinkle it." He said it mildly.
"But I didn't. I didn't even sleep on it."
"Chiun, I'm in love."
"Well, good,' said Chiun. "I forgive you then. It is a major step to take and I can understand why you were wandering the streets all night, thinking of the glories that are Sinanju and deciding to devote your life to our village, in a spirit of love. It is…"
"Chiun, I'm not in love with Sinanju. I'm in love with a woman."
Chiun looked shocked. He said nothing. Then he spat on the floor.
"All Frenchwomen are diseased," he said.
"She's not French."
"And American women are venial and stupid."
"She's not American."
Chiun tried a slight tentative smile. "A Korean girl? Remo, you are bringing home a…"
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