"You dumb shit!" the man bellowed. "What'd you do that for? I need to use the phone."
"So use it," Remo said nonchalantly. "I'll bet if you twist it right, it'll go right up your nostril. Plug that nasty drip. Of course, you'll need two. And this is the only phone booth for miles around. I checked."
The man stared at the dangling steel cable with eyes going mean. One hand snaked to the small of his back. It started back clutching a wicked knife. It went snik! A blade popped out.
"You gonna cut me?" Remo wondered.
"No," the man returned, "I'm gonna disembowel you."
"Thanks for the clarification."
Casually Remo reached up for the man's face.
"Here's a trick I'll bet you never saw before," Remo said.
His splayed fingers took the man by the face, thumb and little finger attaching themselves to the man's cheekbones, the other fingers resting lightly on the forehead. Remo simply crooked his fingers slightly.
Then he brought his hand away.
Mauricio Guillermo Echeverry heard the crack of a sound. It surprised him. The Anglo's hand was in his face so suddenly he hadn't time to react. The crack sounded very near.
Then the hand went away.
Mauricio staggered, clutching the folding glass phonebooth door. Something was wrong. He dropped his knife, as if instinctively understanding it would not help him. Something was very wrong, but he wasn't sure just what. Had the Anglo guy palmed a blackjack and belted him in the face? He hoped no bones were busted. That crack sounded muy serious.
The skinny Anglo stepped back, holding something limp up to the fading light.
Mauricio would have blinked, but lacked the necessary equipment. As a red film fell over his staring eyes, the skinny Anglo made a few passes over the limp thing in his hands. Like a cornball stage magician trying to make an egg disappear.
"Notice there's nothing up my sleeve," the Anglo said in a really irritating tone.
"You ain't got no sleeve crazy guy," Mauricio snarled, his voice sounding funny because he couldn't get his lips to work.
"Just sticking to my act," the Anglo said. "No need to get upset. Here, watch the birdie."
Then he turned it around.
"Look familiar?" the skinny Anglo wanted to know.
Mauricio was surprised to recognize his own face. His closed lids were strangely flat and sunken. He was a little droopy around the lips too, and his handsome Latin face was kind of hangdog. But it was his face. Of that there was no question.
The question was, what was the Anglo doing with his face? And why wasn't it hanging off his own head where it belonged?
"Shall I repeat the question?" the Anglo asked.
Mauricio Guillermo Echeverry didn't respond. He simply leaned forward and fell square on his mush. Which was the sound he made.
Mush.
Remo tossed the flaccid skull-bone-and-skin mask on the quivering owner's back and walked into the Salt Lake City twilight, humming contentedly.
He felt better. He was doing his share to keep drug use down. He could hardly wait until next month's Department of Justice crime statistics. Just by himself, he was probably responsible for a four-percent drop.
He just wished he could get the Master of Sinanju's anguished old face out of his mind.
Chapter 5
The Iraiti ambassador to the United States was having a ball.
"If this is Tuesday," he sang to himself as he entered the Irait consulate on Massachusetts Avenue, Washington's consulate row, "I must be on Nightline. "
He beamed under his thick mustache to the guard at the gate. The identically mustachioed guard grinned back. He passed on. All was good. All was well. True, his nation had been condemned by every government except Libya, Albania, and diehard Cuba. It lay under a punishing blockade. Down in Hamidi Arabia, the largest deployment of U.S. troops since World War Two were poised to strike north and liberate occupied Kuran.
War talk had it that soon very soon-the U.S. would rain the thunder of world indignation down on the outlaw Republic of Irait.
But that was of no moment to Turqi Abaatira, the Iraiti ambassador. He was safe in the U.S. More important, he was a media star, and had been ever since his home government had rolled its Soviet-made tanks down the Irait-Kuran Friendship Road and annihilated the Kurani Army and police force and driven its people into exile as Iraiti forces literally stripped the tiny nation like a hot car, carrying every portable item of value back to the ancient Iraiti capital, Abominadad.
His smiling, good-humored face had been appearing for months on television news shows. Daily, limousines whisked him from broadcast studio to broadcast studio. As the Iraiti Army clamped down on hapless Kuran, Abaatira reassured the world of Irait's peaceful intentions in a soothing, unruffled voice.
Almost no one called him a liar to his face. The one exception-an indignant journalist who demanded to know why Iraiti troops had emptied Kurani incubators of their struggling infants-had been fired for "violating commonplace journalistic standards." Yes, it was wonderfully civilized.
Climbing the marble steps, Abaatira strode confidently into the consulate.
"Ah, Fatima," he said smilingly. "Who has called for me on this glorious summer day?"
"The U.S. Department of State," he was told. "They wish to denounce you in private once again."
Abaatira lost his good-humored grin. His face fell. His thick mustache drooped. It resembled a furry caterpillar that had been microwaved to a crisp.
"What is their problem now?" Abaatira asked dispiritedly. Lately the State Department had been interfering with his personal appearances. It was most inconvenient. Had the Americans no sense of priorities?
"It is over our President's latest edict."
"And what is that?" Abaatira asked, taking a long-stemmed rose from a glass vase and sniffing delicately.
"That all Western male hostages-"
"Guests under duress," Abaatira said quickly. "GUD's."
"That all guests under duress grow mustaches in emulation of our beloved leader."
"What is so unreasonable about that?" Abaatira asked, slipping the rose into his secretary's ample cleavage. He bent to bestow a friendly kiss on her puckering brow. "The edict does say 'males.' Insisting that women and children do this would be unreasonable. When were we ever unreasonable?"
"We are never unreasonable," the secretary said, adjusting the rose so the thorns didn't break her dusky skin. She smiled up at the ambassador invitingly. She despised her lecherous superior, but she did not wish to be shipped back to Abominadad with a poor report. The President's torturers would break not just her skin.
Abaatira sighed. "Perhaps I should have you accompany me to the State Department. I am sure that at the sight of your Arab beauty they would wilt like oasis flowers in the midday sun."
The secretary blushed, turning her dusky face even darker.
Ambassador Abaatira tore his avid eyes off that happy rose with a darkening expression of his own.
"Very well, please inform them that I am on my way for my daily spanking."
Turning on his heel, Turqi Abaatira stepped smartly to his waiting car. He instructed the driver. The car pulled away from the curb like a sleek black shark speeding toward a meal.
In the gilded State Department conference room, Turqi Abaatira used a silk pocket handkerchief to conceal a yawn.
The undersecretary of state was truly wound up this time. The poor overworked man was beside himself, pounding the table in his fury. He was not getting much ink these days, Abaatira reflected. No doubt it rankled. He could understand that. Not so many months before, he himself could not get a choice table in the better restaurants.