Brain Storm (6 page)

He sighed inwardly as the cab pulled up to the curb in front of the large building. It was true what they said. There was no place like home. But Remo doubted that most people thought of the phrase in quite the same way he did.

This day, unlike most other times when his eyes alighted on the building Chiun insisted on referring to as "Castle Sinanju," Remo's spirits were light.

He paid the taxi driver and, grabbing the bag of rice he had brought with him from New York, bounded up the front staircase into the building.

His finely tuned senses told him that Chiun was in one of the rear rooms on the lower floor. Remo deliberately steered in the opposite direction. He'd let Chiun find him.

In the kitchen, Remo dropped the brown canvas bag on a low taboret and scooped the phone up.

Moving to a safe spot across the room, Remo sat up on the counter and stabbed out the 1 button repeat-edly, activating the simplified code system that automatically rerouted his call through various dummy repeater accounts along the East Coast before leading finally to a small office in Rye, New York.

"Yes," the lemony voice of Harold W. Smith said crisply over the secure phone line.

"You know, you never say hello or ask me how I'm doing, Smitty," Remo remarked.

Nor did Smith now. "Dominic Scubisci?" he asked.

Remo sighed. "His goose is cooked/' he said, proud of his private little joke. His acute, Sinanju-trained hearing detected nearly silent footsteps in the hallway. He held the phone closer to his ear and pretended not to be looking at the door.

"May I take that to mean the assignment was carried out successfully?" Smith inquired dryly.

"Didn't you see it on the news?" Remo asked, disappointed.

Smith suddenly sounded vague. "No," he admitted, "I was...otherwise occupied."

"Counting beans again, eh, Smitty?"

Chiun chose that moment to enter the kitchen. He was a frail figure in a bright green kimono. His skin and bones were seemingly as delicate as those of a newly hatched bird. He regarded Remo with a look that one would generally reserve for a persistent sidewalk beggar.

Wordlessly he padded across the kitchen floor. He was very old, his face tracked with wise wrinkles, his eyes like the seams of walnut shells and his wrinkle-webbed mouth thin with thought. No hair sat on his shiny head. Wispy cloud puffs hovered over the tops of his ears, and something like the remnant of a beard clung to his chin. Despite his advanced years, his hazel eyes looked as youthful and mischievous as a child's.

"I was actually not far from you," Smith said. "I was in Manhattan on personal business."

"That's a bit daring for you, isn't it?" Remo said, watching Chiun from the corner of his eye. "You usually don't want to get within a country mile of me when I'm working. And sneaking away from the office on a school day to boot. Naughty naughty."

The Master of Sinanju was sniffing around the bag on the squat table like a dog on a scent and, like a canine, he seemed fearful of close contact with the alien item. He hovered a safe distance from the bag.

"Your assignment was far enough away from my location," Smith explained.

"Yeah, well, about that. Dominic seemed like small potatoes," Remo said. "Especially with his brother sitting right there next to him. I could have taken the two of them out, no questions asked."

Smith didn't agree and had had a difficult time explaining this to Remo the previous day. "The gears of justice are working against Don Anselmo,"

Smith said. "Better to let the American people know their justice system works by convicting him in a court of law."

"He'll beat any rap they hang on him, Smitty,"

Remo complained. "Scubisci'll just go on Horrendo and claim he was molested as a kid or something.

Not only will America forgive him, he'll probably get his own sitcom out of the deal."

"Unlikely."

Remo watched Chiun's back as the old man circled the taboret once more. "Listen, Smitty, if Dominic Scubisci was the only thing on the front burner right now, I'm going to get a little R&R."

Smith agreed. "I will contact you if anything else comes up."

With that, Remo replaced the receiver in the cradle.

4'What is this?" The Master of Sinanju demanded the instant the connection was severed. He pointed a long-nailed finger at the bag Remo had brought from New York.

4'Dinner," Remo explained. 44It's my turn, remember?"

With the sharpened nail of his index finger, Chiun harpooned the bag, splitting it from stem to stern with a delicate flip of his bony hand. The white foam container within the bag burst open beneath the razor-sharp fingernail. The gooey red contents poured out across the gleaming surface like the bloody in-nards of some eviscerated marsupial.

"Aiyeee!" Chiun screeched. "What is this refuse?"

Remo took up a haughty tone. "I'll have you know that is what passes for white rice at one of the most talked-about restaurants in New York City."

The tip of his index finger quivered as Chiun extended it toward the mess on the table. "If this is what these talkers consume, then they are either dead or deranged."

"Actually a little of both," Remo admitted, with a shrug. "I'll get the plates." He began rooting through the cupboards for their place settings.

"This reeks of the pummeled-tomato concoction the Romans once brewed to make food that is already unpalatable even less so."

"Them's good eatin's," Remo agreed. He placed their plates carefully on the taboret and scooped out a healthy portion from the large pile. He dropped the goo into the center of each stoneware dish.

Chiun raised a curious eyebrow and sank to the floor in a kneeling position across from Remo. He didn't speak another word.

Ordinarily Remo didn't use a fork, but he had retrieved one from a drawer near the sink. He scooped up a large forkful of the tomato-rice glop. He raised it to his lips.

Chiun watched, his face etched in stone.

Remo brought the fork to his lips. He opened his mouth. He paused, waiting for Chiun to speak.

As placid as a spring leaf on an early-morning pond, the Master of Sinanju regarded his pupil.

Inwardly Remo frowned. He moved the fork

closer, nearly in his mouth.

All at once, he caught a green blur of Chiun's kimono sleeve and felt the pressure of four bony fingers against his forearm. Quick as a flash, the forkful of rice was in his mouth.

Remo gagged at the taste. His throat clenched re-flexively, and he sprang from the floor, running to the sink. He spit out every repellent morsel, then rinsed his mouth under the running faucet and picked grains of slimy rice from around his teeth with the tip of his tongue. "Dammit, Chiun, that wasn't funny."

Chiun, looking as innocent as a newborn child, watched Remo as he continued to spit bits of food into the sink. "It was my impression that a moment ago it was the pinnacle of hilarity."

"C'mon, Chiun, it was just a joke."

"You would like the Borgias, Remo. lliey, too, found humor in poisons." Chiun rose. "And if we have dispensed with this evening's comedy, I believe it is your turn to make dinner."

"Okay, I'll order out," Remo said glumly. His cheery mood had all but evaporated.

"That is of no concern to me," Chiun declared, breezing from the room.

"White or brown?" Remo called after him.

Chiun's squeaky voice floated back from the hallway. "Brown rice. And carp."

"We had carp last night," Remo countered.

"How about duck?"

"Carp," Chiun repeated. "And if the offensive odor from that offal on the table still clings to your garments when my meal arrives, you may eat out by the garbage pail." And to punctuate the ultimatum, a distant door slammed shut.

An hour later, showered and fed, Remo sat back with Chiun to watch the evening news.

Though as a rule the Master of Sinanju didn't enjoy watching the nightly news, he did so on occasion to monitor—as he put it—the "daily degeneration of so-called Western society." There was a time in his life when an evening wouldn't pass without Chiun seated squarely in front of the broadcast image of news anchor Bev Woo, for whom the Master of Sinanju had developed a particular fondness. He had cooled to her of late, and those moments when he stumbled upon the anchorwoman he became almost plaintive. Woo was off tonight, and there was a sub-stitute anchorman in her chair, a man with a consol-ing baritone and all the range of expression of a Ken doll. "No one is claiming responsibility for the gruesome death of Dominic 'Grips' Scubisci, but the firefight that took the lives of two of Anselmo Scubisci's right-hand men was clearly the work of a rival organized-crime faction. Most likely, insiders say, the Patriconne Syndicate. No word from Don Anselmo on the death of his brother, but we have learned that the Manhattan godfather is holding Bernardo Patriconne personally responsible for the brutal murder."

Chiun listened to the report from a lotus position in the center of the living room. He tipped his birdlike head pensively. "First they say there is no news, and then they report the no news. If no one is speaking, then to whom are these idiots talking?"

"To each other mostly," said Remo from his spot on the room's only chair. He had eschewed the floor tonight. "They make up the news and usually attribute it to some unnamed source. It's some sort of First Amendment dodge. I guess it protects them from lawsuits or something."

"Incredible," Chiun said, shaking his hairless head in disgust. 44I did not hear your name mentioned once in the report. Is there not one of these numbered amendments that requires these cretins to speak the truth?"

"If there was, it'd put most of these guys out of business," Remo said.

Chiun listened for another minute with growing anger while a flawless Sinanju assassination was credited to a group of rank amateurs with guns. At last his patience was exhausted.

"I will have no more of it," he announced.

The Master of Sinanju rose like a puff of angry green steam and crossed over to the television. He was about to slap the Off button with a furious palm when Remo suddenly sat up at attention.

"Hold it, Chiun," he said, raising an impatient hand.

The news anchor had segued into the next story.

Remo saw the image of a crowded bank interior, taken from above, as if from stationary security cameras.

Chiun looked at the screen and then back to Remo.

"Have you developed an even greater taste for inanity?" he asked blandly.

Remo was sitting forward in his chair, his brow furrowed in concern. "That's Smitty," Remo said, pointing to the screen.

At the back of the still image, through the stationary bank crowd, the profile of Dr. Harold W. Smith could be clearly discerned. He was standing before a desk at which a man was squatting inexplicably over a chair.

"No, you are not watching still images," the anchorman said with cloying playfulness. His producer had told the anchorman to use a light touch with the viewers during the next fluff piece. He managed to be both condescending and overbearing at the same time. "This was the scene at the Butler Bank of New York today as over one hundred patrons and startled bank employees had their assets, quite literally, frozen."

The camera began panning. Remo was surprised to see that it wasn't a stationary picture, frozen on a single image. Instead, it was the scene below that seemed locked in space. The camera stopped, completing its programmed arc, but Remo could still make out the pinched features of the CURE director.

Even with the imperfect clarity of the television screen—which was limited by the number of pix-els—Remo's sharp eyes spotted that of all the people, Smith alone wasn't completely immobile.

Though it wasn't enough to attract attention. A second later, a few normally moving figures came into camera range.

The anchor continued. "A daring daylight robbery turned into a payday to those lucky enough to be caught in the cross hairs of a band of modern-day Robin Hoods. No, these robbers didn't steal from the rich and give to the poor. They stole from themselves. Network correspondent Gallic Uckbridge in New York has more."

The reporter on the scene described the Dynamic Interface System as the screen showed the robbers stuffing cash into people's pockets.

Videotaped footage followed, featuring an im-promptu interview held on the sidewalk in front of the bank with PlattDeutsche America vice president for research and development, Lothar Holz.

Holz claimed that the interactive device would revolutionize home-entertainment systems, as well as increase automobile safety, eliminate the need for computer keyboards and physically connect the home of the future to the rest of the palpable world.

With DIS technology, he said, eventually a surgeon would be able to operate from halfway around the globe.

In the wrap-up, the reporter disclosed how the press corps had been kept at bay on the sidewalk while the experiment in the bank was going on. This was done, the reporter said, with the aid of the Dynamic Interface System. It was an application of the device, he noted wryly, that the White House was certainly already looking into.

When the story had finished and Remo seemed satisfied, Chiun slapped his hand against the small round button at the base of the console. The screen winked out.

"That's the business Smith was on today," Remo mused.

"I do not know how you even recognized him. In that crowd, he was as a single grain of sand on a beach. A white beach."

With a movement that was a flawless mixture of economy and delicacy, Chiun sank back to his wo-ven-reed mat in the center of the floor.

The skirts of his emerald green kimono slowly settled around his bony knees like air escaping from a gently settling parachute.

"The way he is about security," Remo grunted,

"I'm surprised he's not going nuts."

"Smith is already insane, Remo. The sky is seen in many shades of blue, but it is never striped."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means that Smith is a lunatic, Smith was a lunatic and Smith will always be a lunatic. If there is a day he is more lunatic than another, it is only a matter of degree."