"No. I just been listening to my Maggot. Gotta ball that Maggot, you know."
"I know," Remo said. "I'm going to fix you up with him."
"You are?"
"Sure. But you've gotta come up with me now so I can get my plans underway."
"Well, man, I'd like to, but tomorrow's the Darlington Festival."
"What's that?"
"Just the biggest rock bash in the history of the whole world."
"You couldn't miss that, could you?"
"No way. No way."
"Okay, we'll go there tomorrow." Remo started to say more, but realized he could no longer even hear his own voice over the sudden roar of sound from the audience. Their voices had been a steady background rumble since he arrived, but now there was a new sustained, high-pitched unison scream. And then, prancing offstage came Maggot, wearing his white suit with the steaks and liver pinned to it, followed by the Three Lice wearing the same costumes, but with less gold braid.
Vickie took her arm from around Remo's shoulder and stepped forward toward Maggot.
"Hey, Maggot," she called. He looked toward her. "Come here. You've got to meet a man."
Maggot took one cautious step toward Vickie and Remo. "What happened to Big Bang?" he asked.
"Oh, don't worry about him," she said. "Nothing serious. This is Remo. I want you to meet him."
Maggot looked at Remo. He did not extend his hand. Neither did Remo. The three Lice moved up close behind Maggot.
"Pleasure, fellow," Maggot said.
"Likewise," Remo said. "By the way, that's a great outfit you're wearing. Who's your butcher?"
Maggot smiled fixedly, saying nothing. One Louse asked, "Vickie, is this guy a friend of yours?"
"My lover. My favorite lover," she said.
"Him? He's like ancient, man. And look at his hair."
"You make love with your hair?" Remo asked. "Well. .. maybe you do."
Out front, the screaming was growing more intense. "Gotta go back," Maggot said. "Quiet down the animals."
"Throw them some raw meat," Remo said.
Maggot looked at Remo shrewdly for a split second, then led the three Dead Meat Lice back on stage. The screaming doubled and redoubled. Maggot bowed. The three Lice bowed. The audience screamed louder.
Maggot waved his hands for silence. The wave produced chaos, and a surge of bodies toward the thin blue line of policemen who ringed the front of the stage.
Maggot waved again. Another surge. From his chest, he ripped a two-pound porterhouse steak and held it high over his head. In the hot lights, the blood and juice was shiny and slick against the meat. More screams. Like a Frisbee champion, he scaled it out into the audience. Frenzy. Chaos.
Then in an orgy of meat distribution, Maggot and the Lice tore the chops and steaks from their clothes and tossed them out over the audience's heads. As the meat splunked down toward the floor of the theater, little pockets of girls knotted and began fighting for the morsels. It looked like T-bone day at the Salvation Army kitchen. But there were more girls than there was meat.
Maggot and the Lice, after denuding their uniforms, started offstage. The meat had been swallowed up by two dozen lucky girls in the audience. The rest were infuriated. They charged the line of policemen. The policemen, held, bent, broke, and the girls poured like a human flood onto the stage and then out into the wings.
First, Remo had stood there with Vickie. Then the Lice and Maggot had joined them. Maggot was beginning to thank Remo for his brilliant concept about giving away the meat when Remo was caught in a maelstrom, a whirlpool of hot, sweaty, perfumed, almost-clothed bodies that swirled backstage like a wall of water.
Over the shrieks came the baritone voices of policemen, trying to clear out the audience. Remo felt himself pressed against the lighting-control panel. He turned toward it, felt hopelessly confused, grabbed as many switches as he could and began pulling them all down. The fifth one worked and backstage was plunged into darkness.
Screams became shrieks. Remo pinched his eyes shut for a second with his hands, forcing the pupils to widen, then he opened his eyes. He could see as well as if there were a light on, and he moved through the crowd of blinded tenagers and policemen as if they were not there. He moved toward the door to the alleyway. Vickie had gone. Maggot and the Dead Meat Lice were gone. He moved outdoors into the drizzling rain. Pulling away from the curb was a tan Rolls Royce, a gang of girls racing after it on foot down the street.
Vickie had gotten away again.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Two phone calls concerning Vickie Stoner were made that night from Pittsburgh.
In a rundown hotel, Dr. Gunner Nilsson managed to convince the desk clerk to get him Switzerland, even though he had to put up a fifty dollar cash deposit before the clerk would complete the call. Nilsson took the call in the lobby, to make sure the clerk did not open the key to listen in.
He said simply, "This is Nilsson. Someone else was after the girl tonight."
He listened, then said, "All right, they were not yours, but if any of yours show up, the same thing will happen to them."
He listened again and said "The Darlington Festival? Then that is where this will all end. But I caution you. No more bunglers getting in my way. You might let that be known."
Then, "Thank you." Nilsson hung up and went to his room. He had to clean and polish his revolver. Tomorrow would be his moment. He must be ready.
"Who cares what the papers say?" Remo said into the phone.
Patiently, Smith tried to explain again. The body of Lhasa Nilsson had been found and identified. The press had dredged up his background and was now speculating that he had been in this country on a murder contract when he had met his own death. But now, the word was out in the underworld that the Nilsson family was in the country to take revenge against the killers of Lhasa.
"So I care what the papers say," Smith said. "It means that you and Chiun must be extra careful. Vickie Stoner is now being hunted down by one of the world's great assassins and so, apparently, are you. Be careful. And it would probably improve Vickie Stoner's chances if you could keep her in your sight for more than a minute at a time."
"Yeah, right, right, right," Remo said disgustedly.
"Where are you going to pick up the girl?" Smith asked.
"She got away from us tonight in a riot. But we'll nail her at the Darlington music festival and get her away."
"Be careful."
"Is worrying written into your job description?" Remo asked, but Smith had already hung up and Remo slammed the phone onto the cradle.
"Dr. Smith worries?" Chiun asked.
"Yes. It seems the Nilsson house is after us because of what you did to Lhasa Nilsson."
"Of course, they are," Chiun said, shaking his head sadly. "But that is always the way with upstart houses. They take everything personally."
"But we don't?" Remo said.
"You do, but I don't. It is the difference between the keeper of a tradition, and something the cat dragged in."
Remo was now as annoyed at Chiun as he had been at Smith.
"Well, you better go easy, Chiun. I understand these Nilssons are good. And they're no upstart house. They've been at it for six hundred years."
"Still upstarts," Chiun said. "The House of Sinanju existed when the Nilssons were still living in mud huts."
"Well, Smith says be careful."
"You should take his advice," Chiun said.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Being old hands at the rock festival routine, Maggot and the Dead Meat Lice, along with Vickie Stoner and their chauffeur, drove through the night to get to Darlington, a small village in the New York Catskills, where the concert would be held the next day.
Rooms had already been reserved at the town's one-and-only motel under the name of Calvin. Cadwallader, and there Maggot and company would dress tomorrow before being helicoptered to the concert scene to do their bit. They would also leave by chopper. This approach had come through experience, because they might literally be dismembered if they allowed their bodies to get into the clutches of their adoring-mostly young, mostly female, but all predatory-fans.