Served the old biddy right. Taste of his own medicine. Slice of his own sour-grapes pie. Chiun had been a thorn in the keister for months. It seemed he had been getting increasingly grumpy and withdrawn ever since the Time of Succession, when Remo had finally donned the mantle of Reigning Master of Sinanju.
Remo hadn't really expected much change. He didn't believe that Chiun was going to start following Remo's lead or stop trying to drill his head full of five thousand years of Sinanju history, and in truth that hadn't happened.
But there had been changes. Chiun was less prone to being the harping teacher to Remo's inattentive student. Sometimes. Well, almost never. For a while the old Master had become extra-antisocial, spending hours watching TV or pretending to. Remo knew he was engrossed in deciphering whatever it was that had happened to him in Sinanju at the Time of Succession.
Remo didn't know what actually had happened to Chiun, and Chiun wasn't talking.
Chiun appeared in the gravel parking lot, slowly strolling away from the hotel in a sort of walking meditation.
Lately Chiun had become impatient with Remo's gaps in learning. The trouble was that Remo had learned the art of Sinanju years ago, and all that was left for Chiun to teach was the boring stuff-occasional bits of obscure philosophy that the old Korean always seemed to be making up as he went along. Legends of Sinanju Masters who were so unimportant or dull that they hadn't been mentioned in all these years. Then there was the stilted prose of the endless written histories.
Remo had experienced a new sense of pride and responsibility when he achieved the title Reigning Master. He had even agreed to undergo training in Chiun's archaic form of Korean calligraphy.
Oh. That was supposed to happen yesterday.
"Ah, crap," he announced to the empty room. "I forgot about the writing lesson."
Far across the parking lot the figure of the Master of Sinanju Emeritus turned and offered Remo a scowl that told him he had at least had the brains to figure out what he'd done wrong.
So that was what was bugging Chiun. But for some reason Remo thought it wasn't what was bugging him. So what was it?
He sensed the tiny surge of electricity inside the phone and snatched the receiver as it started to ring. "Yeah?"
"It's happening." It was Mark Howard. "Not far from you."
"Where's your dad, Doogie?"
"At home, getting some rest. Remo, listen-there's a disturbance going on at one of the bars in town. The police scanner feed says there's some bikers tearing up the place."
"Let me get this straight. You think a brawl in a biker bar is out of the ordinary?"
"Of course not," Howard said. "It's the Nashville Rock Hard Cafe. It's strictly an upscale place-you know, all kinds of expensive rock-star memorabilia and stuff. Caters mostly to tourists. The bikers are outsiders. I don't know what they're up to, but it sounds like they're laying siege to the place."
REMO DROVE across the lot and pulled to a stop behind Chiun, who was facing resolutely in the other direction, his scarlet kimono shimmering in the distant lights.
"The Fresh Prince of Folcroft says it's time for work," Remo called.
For a moment the old Master was motionless, then he turned, the picture of dignity, and entered the car. They drove into the heart of Nashville.
After some silence, Remo spoke. "Little Father, I am sorry I blew off the writing lesson."
"You deliberately avoided it," Chiun said evenly.
"Hey, no, it wasn't like that. Smitty needed me here to look into all the crazy types."
"You could have delayed the trip."
"Aw, come on! What good would that have done?"
"What good have you done since you arrived?" Chiun asked innocently.
"All right, so I'm batting zero. I told Smitty to get his investigators on this instead of me."
"But you did not insist. All this is a sham. Do you even wish to learn the most basic of skills necessary for a true Master of Sinanju?"
Remo was getting ticked. "What the hell have I been wasting my time on for all these years?"
Chiun stared at him coldly. Then he faced forward again. "You have learned just enough to make you the most uncouth and unmannered Master in five thousand years. You're a Mongol. A barbarian."
"Remo the Barbarian?" Remo asked.
"Yes. Exactly. That is how I shall address you in the scrolls. Remo the Barbarian is what I shall call you as I record your history during my waning years-because clearly you will not be able to record your own history."
"You make me sound illiterate," Remo protested.
"Your scrawl is hideous. It is an abomination made worse by the unbeautiful Roman characters you choose to use and the despicable hodgepodge of a language you employ. You must learn to make graceful hangul characters in order to keep the chronicles of Sinanju history."
"I'm not gonna be keeping the books in Korean, Little Father. I'll keep them in English."
Chiun turned his head sharply at Remo. "What are you saying? You absolutely will not allow mankind's most important historical record to be sullied with the use of English! It is unthinkable!"
"But that's how it is," Remo said firmly.
"I will not allow it! The writing of the Sinanju Masters has always been in Korean dialects."
"Yeah, well, up until a few years ago the Masters were always Korean. That's changed, too. Now I'm the Reigning Master, and I'm not Korean, mostly."
"The blood of the Sinanju Masters flows in your veins."
"True. But every Master before me was born in Sinanju and grew up speaking Korean and I wasn't. I was born in America and I grew up reading and writing American."
The large and garish Rock Hard bar and hotel came into view. It was past two in the morning, but the lights were blazing and the music was thumping from inside loud enough to rattle the dashboard of the rental car. Crowds seethed in the streets and on the sidewalk. "Lively place," Remo commented.
A human being crashed through one of the glass doors, moving fast, moving backward, and his feet never touched the ground until he crumpled in a broken heap.
"Getting less lively every second, though," Remo added, pulling to the curb.
VIRGIL "VIRGIN KILLER" Miller liked the way the body sounded when he hoisted it into the doors. The doors cracked and the body made breaking noises, too, and then made more breaking noises when it landed. At some point during his brief flight the victim had stopped being alive.
Served him right!
Virgin Killer didn't dwell on the fact that he really didn't have a reason for hating these people. Him and Bork and all the guys, the Road Sharks, they was finally doing what needed doing.
He spotted a weasel in a light blue sport jacket.
"You!" Miller's meaty hand shot out and intercepted the man as he bolted for the exit. Virgin Killer spun Mr. Blue Sport Coat, and the man's spine met the steel support beam between the front doors. Miller grabbed him again just before he fell.
"You make me wanna puke!"
"I don't even know who you are," his prisoner stammered.
"But I know you! Coming in here in your prissy clothes like some fairy boy! I hate you all!"
Virgin Killer Miller turned on the interior of the bar, carrying Mr. Blue Sport Coat over his head. "You hear me, you people! I hate you like I hate my own mother!" He hurled his victim into a lounge area, breaking tables, chairs and bones.
A large crowd of patrons was trapped in the middle of the Rock Hard Cafe. Miller and the other bikers were blocking the doors and the rear emergency exits. Virgin Killer had lots of choices.
"Well, look at all these fancy clothes," he snarled. "You people must spend a lot of money to make yourselves look so fine. You sure are a bunch of prissy-assed bitches and pretty boys."
Miller grabbed one young man by the shirt collar. He went limp with terror. "You know I can't stand pretty boys. I want to do things that'll make them look really ugly. And hey! You're about the prettiest of them all."