"I didn't, no thanks to you."
"Of course there are no thanks to me," Chiun said with a sniff. "There have never been thanks to me, especially not from the adopted son to whom I have given everything." Chiun was speaking now for the benefit of the flight attendant who awaited them inside the doors at the top of the steps.
"I gave him my title. I gave him an education and a vocation," Chiun explained to her. "I gave him what orphans the world over dream of. What do I get in return?"
"Bellhop service for life," Remo answered.
"Disdain." Chiun's quivering head shook sadly.
"Oh, dear," the flight attendant murmured, her mechanical smile melting into genuine sympathy.
"Don't believe a word of it," Remo warned.
"You poor man."
"Ask him how poor," Remo called from behind. "He could buy this airport."
"Poor in the currencies that matter. Loyalty. Understanding. Respect."
"Yo, Emeritus! We got places to go."
Chiun leaned close to the young woman in the starched navy blue uniform. "You see how it is for me," he whispered, his lungs, weary from a century of breathing, were barely able to get the words out.
The flight attendant wiped away a single drop of moisture from the corner of her eye and tenderly embraced the little man's crippled body in her arms, then gently assisted him to the window seat. When she was sure he was comfortable-as comfortable as his weak, failing body could possibly be-she turned and shot a lethal look of disgust at Remo Williams, Reigning Master of Sinanju.
THE FLIGHT WAS chartered for just the two of them, and in no time they were taxiing to a stop at a tiny regional airport. A rental car was waiting, and Remo followed the directions that had been faxed to him, with a hand-drawn map, from Folcroft. Remo still felt disoriented by the three words that were printed in neat block letters at the big X that indicated their destination. He knew what "Saloon" meant. What was "Big Stomp?" Was Smitty experimenting with some more code words? If so, Remo missed the meeting. Or he'd missed paying attention at the meeting. Did Big Stomp indicate he was supposed to go in and assassinate everybody in the place? He was thinking he'd better call Upstairs and clarify the message before he actually carried out such instructions.
His destination came into view in the form of a massive lighted sign, fifty feet off the ground, bright red with white letters. Then he understood the words on the map.
"Big Stomp Saloon is the name of a bar?"
"The Big Stomp?" Chiun said, perking up from his introspective sulk. "Is it the Big Stomp Saloon?"
"Don't tell me you've heard of the place?" Remo asked as they parked amid squad cars and unmarked vehicles.
"Hey, you!" said a state trooper just inches from the driver's-side window.
"Who has not heard of it?" Chiun asked as they stepped from the car.
"Mister, I been waving you off since you started up the drive," the trooper said. "Now you tell me, you blind or just stupid?"
"I'm with the federal government, so you make the call," Remo said, pulling out an ID and giving it a quick glance before presenting it to the trooper. "Remo Baggins, National Tobacco, Firearms and Alcohol Association."
"From who now? You mean ATF? Partner, this ain't a federal case. No nationwides are invited."
"There was something in the booze that caused it, so that makes it the business of the booze bureau."
The trooper's lips went tight. "You wait right here." He scurried off, never noticing the pair was silently tailing him, but the Masters halted when a white limousine turned into the lot and rolled to a stop on crunching gravel.
"Do you see, Remo? People of wealth come here. It is a place of importance in musical history."
"Yeah." The limo received personal service from one of Tennessee's finest. A trooper chatted with the driver, but Remo was more interested in the figures behind the dark glass in the back seat. "You mean they aren't reopening tonight?" asked a voice from the rear. Whoever he was, he was hidden behind the bulk of a bodyguard.
The trooper chuckled politely and explained that it would take hours to process the crime scene and, no, the place would not be reopening tonight. The figure in the back stared past his hired muscle, taking it all in. Then he stared fixedly at Remo-it was the voyeur gaze of a man who knew he could see but, behind the dark glass, not be seen.
But this time he was wrong. Remo adjusted his vision to compensate for the refraction of the flashing light that turned the windows into mirrors, at the same time adjusting the angle of his face so that the headlights of the nearest squad car put his own face in shadow.
But the man in back never moved out from behind the bodyguard. Remo saw only the eyes.
Then the limo rolled away.
REMO AND CHIUN FOUND the cavernous interior of the Big Stomp crowded with uncollected corpses, shattered furniture, and the stench of spilled beer turning sour under hot crime-scene lights.
"Yeesh. The Big Stomp is a big dump," Remo said. "So how come you've heard of it?"
"It is renowned throughout the world," Chiun said.
"Which world we talking about?" The stark white police lights hid none of the shabbiness of the peeling wall paint, the scratched floor or the water-stained ceiling tiles.
"This is where the career of Wylander Jugg blasted off," the old Korean explained.
"Launched?"
"Before she became a star, the comely Wylander was performing here without appreciation of her marvelous talents, until a musical agent came to see her show. Even in this foul place her brilliance shone, and the musical agent took her under his wing."
"Ah. Many things now makes sense to me about Wylander Jugg." Remo looked down at a body inside a chalk outline. The broken end of a beer bottle protruded from the stomach of a man with a week's growth of shaggy beard.
"Nasty, ain't it?" asked the man taking pictures.
"Looks like a prop from a Patrick Swayze movie," Remo commented.
The photographer screwed up his face. "Dirty Dancing?"
"I wish. Who did all this running amok?"
"Who didn't?" the photographer said. "The whole place went nuts. Started out with one little fight on the dance floor, and next thing you know everybody was brawlin' everybody. We had five bodies when we got here and we musta sent fifty wounded to the Methodist hospital."
"Were they lucid?" Remo asked.
"Were they who?"
"You know, were they thinking clearly? Or kind of confused?"
"Oh. Definitely more like kinda confused. None of ' em seems to know what happened. None of 'em even knows who did the killin'."
"Can I help you?" demanded a county official with a sheriff's badge pinned on his rumpled white shirt. "You federals are not supposed to be here."
"Just asking a few questions," Remo said. "Won't take long."
"Let me see your identification:"
Remo thrust his badge at the sheriff. "Where's your witnesses?" he asked the photographer.
"Don't answer that, Aberle!" the sheriff snapped. "What about him? You gonna try and tell me he's ATF, too?" The sheriff nodded at Chiun, who watched stoically with his hands tucked neatly in the sleeves of a scarlet kimono. .
Remo tried to remember what Chiun's ID said. "Who're you with again, Little Father?"
"CLECIC," Chiun chirped without hesitation. Remo and the sheriff were equally befuddled. "Huh?" the lawman demanded.
"Congressional Law Enforcement Corruption Investigation Committee," Chiun explained in his pleasant singsong.
"There ain't no such thing!" the sheriff insisted. "Let me see your damn-"
The sheriff stopped talking and stopped moving. His mouth hung open, ready to complete the expletive. The photographer found it very curious. He also found it curious that the little Korean man was now holding the sheriff by the earlobe. "What just happened?" he asked the skinny Caucasian ATF agent.