"For which one-the victim or the guy who autopsied him?"
"Either. Come this way."
The two dead men occupied adjoining refrigerated drawers. Dr. Schiff-his card read Norman Schiff-pulled out the body of Doyal T. Rand first, and the Master of Sinanju bustled up to examine it critically.
"For all intents and purposes, this man's head has been emptied of all organic matter except for the skull bones," Dr. Schiff explained.
"What would do that?"
"This is so far into the realm of the unknown that I wouldn't venture a guess. But the brain matter showed signs my predecessor ascribed to having been thoroughly chewed."
"Chewed?"
"Chewed."
"Something ate his brain?" Remo asked.
"It would appear so."
The drawer rolled shut. Out came the cadaver of the chief medical examiner for Manhattan until that morning.
"I have found what appears to be an insect bite on Dr. Quirk's shoulder."
Chiun peered at the bite site and said, "A bad bee did this."
"Insect parts were found, but they were too small to support the bee theory."
"It was a very small bee," Chiun said.
Dr. Schiff frowned fiercely. "I am in contact with one of the most renowned entomologists in the country, and he says no bee that small exists in nature. Therefore, it was not a bee."
Chiun asked, "Where is the corpse of the bee?"
"Follow me."
They were shown the microscope, and it was turned on.
"Without this contraption for the blind," said Chiun.
"Beg pardon?"
"I prefer my naked eyes."
"But you will not be able to see anything."
"Do what he says," suggested Remo. "He's the big cheese in his speciality."
"What is your specialty, might I ask?" Schiff inquired of Chiun.
"Death," said Chiun in a chilly tone.
Shrugging, the M.E. shut off the microscope and extracted the slide. He handed it to Chiun, who lifted it to the light.
Chiun subjected the slide to the critical acuity of first one eye, then the other. Remo leaned over, but Chiun faded back, hissing, "You are in my light, oafish one."
"Sorry," said Remo, stepping around to the other side.
"I see bug parts," said Remo.
Chiun nodded. "Yes, these look like the parts of a bug."
"Of course," said the M.E., who was astonished that these two could discern this with only their unassisted eyes.
"Bee parts," Chiun added.
"No bees are so small," the M.E. insisted. "I have this on the highest authority."
"Who's that?"
"Dr. Helwig X. Wurmlinger, the renowned entomologist."
"Renown does not equal correctness," sniffed Chiun. He eyed Dr. Schiff. "Do you know the name of the finest assassin in the world?"
"I do not."
"Or his title?"
"Of course not. Therefore what?"
"He is not renowned."
"That makes him perhaps more, not less great," said the Master of Sinanju, handing the slide back and leaving the room in a rustle and swirl of kimono skirts.
Outside, Remo turned to Chiun and asked, "So, we got nothing?"
"On the contrary. We have something terrible."
"What's that?"
"The bee that is not."
And that was all Remo could get out of the Master of Sinanju.
Chapter 9
The New York Public Library near Bryant Park was a lot bigger than Tammy Terrill expected it to be. She immediately got lost among the bewildering maze of book-laden shelves.
"Where's the bug department?" she asked a librarian.
The woman looked up from reshelving a cart full of books. "The what?"
"Uh, the department of insects?"
"Try biology."
"Is that near here?"
Her tone and face were so helpless that the librarian broke down and escorted Tammy to the biology section and indicated a row of fat books so long Tammy blurted, "I didn't know there were that many books in the world!"
"Insects outnumber people by billions. In fact, if you could place every ant on earth on one side of a balance scale and every human being on the other, ants would outweigh mankind."
"Ooh. Neat factoid. You must watch the Discover Channel constantly. "
"No," the librarian said frostily, "I read."
"I read, too. TelePrompTers. Sometimes AP wire stories when I absolutely have to."
"I'll leave you to your digging," the librarian said.
Her eyes widening, Tammy grabbed the woman by her skinny arm. "Wait. I only need to know about bees."
"Bees?"
"Killer bees."
The librarian walked the length of the long rows of shelving and, without seeming to look at the spines, stopped and indicated an upper section of shelf.
"Here," she said.
"You really know this shelf, don't you?"
"I work here," the librarian returned, and walked off, trailing a faint scent of lilac.
There were a lot of bee books, Tammy found. Two on killer bees alone. Both were titled The Killer Bees, but they were not the same book. The author names were completely different. Tammy wondered if it was legal for two people to write a book on the same subject with the same title and decided because they were books, nobody probably read them much and by this time nobody really cared. Reading was so pre-MTV.
She took the books off the shelf and saw they were pretty old-mid 1970s. It gave her a weird chill to think that she herself was as old as an actual book. And vice versa.
The upside was that the prices were really, really cheap.
At the checkout line, they wouldn't accept Visa. Or Discover, Tammy found.
"Miss, I need to see your library card," a prim woman told her.
"Oh, I don't have that one. Must have maxed it out. Will you take a check?"
They wouldn't take checks. Or cash, either.
"You'll have to apply for a card. Or read them here."
Tammy still didn't quite get it, but figured if they were stupid enough to let her read the books on the premises, why should she bother to buy?
At a desk, she skimmed through both books, absorbing factoids by the score. This was how she did most of her research. Tammy had discovered long ago, you didn't need much to get through for a three-minute stand-up report. A necklace of names and facts usually carried the segment.
While skimming, she committed dozens of interesting facts to memory.
Bees, she learned, were very, very important. They gathered the pollen grains that fertilized all plants on earth. Without bees, flowers couldn't reproduce.
"Great! A sex angle."
Bees were good insects, because they fertilized food plants. And they made honey. Another good, beneficial thing.
"Ooh, a diet angle. It's getting better."
Then she got to the juicy stuff.
The proper name was Africanized killer bee. That presented an image problem, but that would be up to Fox standard practices whether or not to identify killer bees by race.
Early on, she read that there was no known geographic or climatic barrier that would prevent the spread of the killer bee into North America. That one she wrote down because it was an actual quote and she wanted to get it right in case someone actually checked. It sounded perfect for her lead.
Killer bees, Tammy further discovered, injected a neurotoxin that was more deadly than the simple toxin of ordinary honeybees. They were also unusually aggressive and easily provoked.
"More people succumb each year to bee stings than to snakebites," she muttered, moving her lips with each enunciated word.
"Deadlier than a rattlesnake!" she cried, instantly coining a new lead.
"Shh!"
Tammy ignored the other browsers at their tables. She wondered how libraries made money. Everyone seemed to be reading, not buying.
She was surprised to find that bees were kept in apiaries.
"Wonder where apes are kept. In honeycombs?"