"Okay, so you're dying anyway," Remo said. "You've got maybe ten minutes. So why not just tell me what I wanna know?"
Belfagore made animal sounds, gnashing his teeth. "Why'd you guys get all freaked out? Who put you up to this?"
Belfagore's collection of sounds settled into a long, menacing growl.
"He's mad," Chiun pointed out.
"You said that."
"I mean, he's insane."
Remo nodded reluctantly. "Who isn't? I wanna know." He grabbed the dying biker by the base of the neck and turned him off. Belfagore went limp.
"I am not insane," Chiun said indignantly. "You, however, are behaving oddly. For example, I see you have now taken up the noble pastime of looting the dead."
"Ha!" Remo had extracted the biker's wallet, a huge black leather affair on a stainless-steel belt chain, and flourished the driver's license. "Belfagore's real name? Maurice."
Chiun said nothing, but his brows grew heavy as he observed Remo moving among the corpses, pulling out wallets one after another. "This guy's named Bork. This guy is Virgil. No wonder the weird nicknames!"
"This has some meaning to you'?"
Remo grinned and shrugged. "Just looking for the common thread tying these losers together."
"What is common is they are all dead," Chiun noted.
CHIUN WAS STARING at the wing of the 737 as if it might, just might, fall off right then, before they even pushed back from the gate.
"Slowpoke," he said.
"Who? Me?" Remo asked from the next seat. "When was I slow?"
"I've already explained that."
"Did I miss something?"
"You missed me on the way in," said a woman in a blue blazer and a blond hair helmet. "I'm Johlene, and I'll be your stewardess on this flight."
"Fine. Thanks." Remo avoided eye contact and said to Chiun, "Explain it again."
"Who buckled this seat belt?" Johlene demanded playfully. "It's all wrong."
"You know, I've done ten thousand airplane seat belts and I think I've got the hang of it. " Remo shoved her groping hands away from his lap. "Now, when was I slow?"
Chiun sighed. "During the poke. As I explained."
"What poke?"
"Against the smelly bicycle riders in the loud nightclub," Chiun said.
"My poke was not slow."
"I could use a slow-" Johlene interjected.
"Can it!" Remo barked at the stewardess. Her eyes opened a little wider. They glinted. Remo wasn't looking. "Your form was imperfect, as well," Chiun complained.
"You're making up stuff."
"Your form is perfect. Don't listen to him," Johlene said comfortingly to Remo.
"What does it take to offend somebody these days?" Remo demanded.
"Who knows?" the stewardess asked, leaning her bosom into his chest. "Why not call me a few dirty names and see if I leave in a huff."
"Addressing the fraudulent nature of her udders should drive her off," Chiun said with irritation.
Johlene stiffened. "What did he say?"
"Oh, yeah." Remo glared pointedly at the sculpted bustline. "Boob implants. I absolutely can't stand fakes. It turns me off big time."
"But look at them," she pleaded. "They're so firm and symmetrical."
"What have you got in there-aluminum softballs? Yech."
Johlene finally left, and Remo ignored the alternately pleading and disdainful looks she gave him during the rest of the flight.
"Your mean form lacks grace, which is a result of your lack of precision dexterity," Chiun explained when she was gone.
"Say that again, Little Father?"
"Your training was unbalanced. I failed to instill the proper respect for the written word. From the creation of beautiful words on parchment comes the appreciation of beautiful movement of the rest of the body."
"You're joking, right?"
"I joke not."
"Listen, Chiun, the training is done. I'm trained. You did the best you could, and it turns out you are a wonderful teacher. I'm good at my job."
"Your job?" Chiun turned to face him finally. "Is that what Sinanju is to you? An occupation?"
"Of course not."
"Is that why you have decided to stagnate? You have deemed yourself adequate and see no profit in improvement? Oh, Remo, you send all my hopes crashing down like fine crystal goblets pushed off high shelves."
"Oh, brother."
"This is a white attitude. It is the blood of your European ancestors that makes you lazy. I prayed that your Korean blood would give you perseverance. Even the Native Americans who have sullied your ancestry will inherently strive for improvement against the greatest adversity."
"I never said I was going to rest on my laurels!" Remo argued.
"Laurels? How European. How Roman. How like you to use those words."
"It's a figure of friggin' speech. I don't even know what laurels are!"
"I feel grave concern for your future, Remo."
"I thought you felt hopeless."
"I am gravely concerned for your standing among the Masters. I do not want to be known as Chiun, Trainer of Remo the Slothful."
Remo said, "That's what this is about, huh? How I reflect on you in the Sinanju scrolls?"
"Of course! The status of a Master depends in great part on the status of the Master he trains."
"And I'm not good enough?"
"You are not trying hard enough."
"So I haven't been pulling my weight?"
"You are complacent," Chiun replied without hesitation.
Remo didn't answer. He looked at the seat back in front of him and thought about Chiun's words.
This was more than an idle insult-and Chiun was the king of idle insults. The old Master had been considering this. He was sincere.
But was he right?
It sure didn't feel to Remo that he was slacking. He'd had a rough ride of it in recent years, starting with his Rite of Attainment and getting worse as he closed in on the Rite of Succession. Even Chiun had admitted that Remo had faced harder obstacles than most Masters reaching their prime.
Was it possible that his attitude had changed for the worse since he became Reigning Master? Was he slacking?
"Okay, Little Father," he said finally. "First chance we get; I promise, we'll get into the whole penmanship thing."
Chiun narrowed his eyes.
"I mean it," Remo added.
"What are you hiding?"
"I'm not hiding anything. I meant what I said, that's all. I'll take the calligraphy lessons."
"I sense a ploy."
"No ploy. No tricks up my sleeve. I promise you I'll give the lessons a shot."
THE WING SEEMED well anchored to the fuselage of the aircraft, but wings and limbs could become separated from their bodies easily enough. What Chiun had never understood was why such great masses of metal could not be made inflexible. But he had been assured that they were designed to wobble in the wind. And they all did. Wobble.
There had been a time when Chiun was worried about his unlikely protege for much the same reason he was worried now. It was just after Remo had, miraculously enough, passed through the Rite of Attainment.
Common sense decreed that Sinanju skills should never have flourished inside the inherently clumsy body of a white, but Remo had such skills in abundance. His proved Sinanju lineage only partially explained it.
But after his Attainment, after he solved the mystery of his parentage and offspring, there was a time when Remo had become, of all things, content.
Contentment was no good. Contentment led to complacency, and complacency could get a Master annihilated.
Then came a time of increasing hardship as the leaders of the world seemed to descend en masse into idiocy. The U.S. put in place a puppet president whose only possible qualification could be for entertainment purposes. The challenges to Remo became greater, as well, as he became afflicted with the Master's Disease and was haunted by the manifestation of the Master Who Never Was, foretelling worsening hardship.