He skipped rapidly around Chiun, careful not to get between him and the picture, and listened to Vickie's heartbeat with his fingertips. Stopped. She was dead or in shock. He leveled her out on the floor and massaged the heart as Chiun had taught him. With his fingernails he created rapid movement in the hair as Chiun had taught him. The heart moved under Remo's ministrations, he released his hands slightly and her heart was beating by itself. He felt for broken bones, a rib that might have been sent into another vital organ. Chiun had taught that an opponent's rib is like a spear next to his heart, liver, and spleen.
The ribs were all right. His fingertips moved to the stomach and back, searching, as Sinanju was taught to search, to know the body through the hands. Then down to the soles of the feet and the toes. He had not fully learned this yet, but Chiun had taught that in the feet are all the nerves. One could, by manipulation of the toes, tell even if eyesight were failing. All Remo learned was that Vickie hadn't washed her feet.
"Heavy, man," groaned Vickie. Remo pressed his hands to her lips lest she further interrupt As the Planet Revolves.
And thus it came to pass that when the
Master of Sianaju had removed the obstruction of his modest pleasure, his student did further interrupt beauty with petty tantrums about incidents which may or may not have happened. Yet, under this assault against beauty, the Master of Sinanju did endure, for through the years, no matter how carefully he had tried to explain, his pupil had never learned to appreciate the one true beauty of his gross culture. It was not likely that he would learn now.
Chiun endured the sounds from the floor behind him. He endured the interruption of the girl, who said, "Heavy, man." He endured it all, for his heart was gentle enough and humble enough to endure almost anything.
And when the dramas for the day were over, he heard his ungrateful pupil rail against his pitiful attempt to enjoy a day, uninterrupted, of his beloved art.
"You could have called me. I would have gotten her out of your way. I would have removed her. You might have done what we're trying to prevent. Did you know that?"
Chiun did not answer, for how could one communicate with the insensitive? He would let his pupil vent his silliness, for Chiun's gentle heart could bear all outrages. Such was the purity of the spirit of the Master of Sinanju.
"Thank God there weren't any bones broken, but I don't know how, Chiun. She hit the wall like a catapult."
Why not? She had intruded like a ... a ... like a white man. But Chiun would not discuss that. There were some things one forgave one's pupil. There was one thing he could not forgive, however, and that was incompetence. On that he would speak.
"If your charge, that you were here to protect, was not with you, then why is your anger at me? It is not at me that your anger rails but at yourself for if you were properly discharging your duties, she could never have been here."
"I was clearing the rims as you taught me, Little Father, creating safety by going outward instead of staying inward."
"You cleared nothing if you left her alone to discover trouble. Where is she now?"
"She was able to walk and I put her in the other room so she wouldn't run afoul of you again while the shows were on."
"Then you are not with her?"
"Obviously."
"Then you are obviously a fool. This child has some good qualities I have not previously found in Americans. She understands the respect due a Master of Sinanju. You should have taught her about the American television treasures."
"I have a revelation for you, Little Father. She doesn't know Sinanju from the Assassins of Arabia, and she'd laugh at you if you tried to tell her about soap operas."
"The assassins were not of quality. Why would you compare the House of Sinanju to men who smoked their courage? And laugh? Why would anyone laugh at a Master of Sinanju?"
"You don't understand the counter culture in this country."
"How can one have a counter to something that does not exist? Truly puzzling. But what is not puzzling is your incompetence. I have told you what you must do, but you do not do it. You prefer to argue and fail than to listen and succeed. Such is the case with many people, but never before with a pupil of the House of Sinanju."
So with scarcely a "yes, Little Father," Remo went into the other room and Vickie Stoner was gone. He checked the bathroom and the hall. He went to the stairwells and listened. He ran to the lobby. But Vickie Stoner was not there. Just a small commotion at the registration desk. A Swedish man with a very deep tan, as if he had lived in the sun for thirty years, was arguing with the clerk and with three blacks in black, red, and green skullcaps.
"My name is Nilsson and I expressly made a reservation for today. You must have it. Lhasa Nilsson."
CHAPTER NINE
Abdul Hareem Barenga, alias Tyrone Jackson, didn't give the bellboy a tip because he was a lacky of imperialism, an Uncle Tom and an Oreo. These were the real reasons.
The incidental reason why was that these white mu-fus at the registration desk downstairs had demanded the room fee in advance which had taken the last of the money from St. Louis.
"We outa juice, baby?" asked Philander Jones, looking around the Waldorf Astoria Hotel room, which he figured he could clean out and resell for at least $1,300, if he could get everything past the doorman.
"We not outa juice," said Barenga. "We beginning to capitalize the revolution."
"We shoulda waited for the welfare before we begun the revolution 'cause that's two hundred right there."
"The revolution don't need no welfare. It need capitalization. And we gettin' it."
"Two hundred is two hundred."
"You think like a nigger, you always gonna be a nigger, nigger. We listen to you, we do this job for seven, maybe eight hundred. You think capitalization and you know what the man is doing. Gotta think like the man to beat the man."
Philander Jones had to admit that Barenga was right again. When that Guinea mafioso had been buried in that closed coffin and the money had come out of the wreath and then that candyman Sweet Harold had told them about all that bread on an open contract, Barenga had played it real cool, man. Went right to that white guinea trucking outfit, sitting in the main office like he owned it and had put the man down and down and down.
"I don't need no white mu-fu tell me how to do a mu-fu job," Barenga had said, sitting with his feet right up there on that guinea's desk and the guinea not saying nothing. Nothing.
"You should see her picture first. To get the right one."
"Ah ain't here 'cause T love you, honkey. I ain't here 'cause I think you anything but a pale dead meat copy of the original man. Capital. I'm here for capital. My army needs capital. You wanna deal, honkey, you deal capital."
"How much capital?" asked the vice president of Scatucci Trucking.
"Twenty thousand big ones." "That would be two thousand dollars, right?"
"Yo ears fulla shit, honkey. I said big one: Twenty thousand dollars."
"That's a lot of money," said the vice president of the trucking firm. "You drive a hard bargain. I'll give you four hundred now and the rest when the job is done."
"You ain't dealing with no jive-ass nigger, honkey. Now break out some of that good scotch you keep around for business deals. And keep your lips off the bottle."
Barenga and Philander had finished the bottle of Johnny Walker Black in the truck terminal and then they went to the HiLo, where they had scotch and cola, scotch and Seven Up, scotch and Snow White, and scotch and Kool Aid, all from the top of the shelf-Black Label, Chivas Regal, Cutty Sark. The Chivas and the Snow White was the best By morning, the four-hundred dollars up front was exhausted and when they went back to the trucking terminal for more money, the honkey wasn't there, but Sweet Harold pulled up in his hog, a white Eldorado and he said their asses would be in New York City by that afternoon or their asses wouldn't be at all. He showed them the photograph of the white fox with the red hair and said she was the hit and they'd better make a good try or Sweet Harold would cut them up for good.