"What is that game?" he asked aloud.
"Electronic Ping-Pong," Dor said. "Ever play it?"
"No. But I can beat you."
Dor laughed derisively.
"You couldn't beat me if I wore a blindfold," he said.
"I could beat you if I wore a blindfold," said Hunt.
"Get out of here, will you?" said Dor.
"I will play you," said Hunt.
"Go away."
"My life against the job. The game decides."
Dor turned and looked at Hunt's face. The American rose and walked to the machine.
"You're serious, aren't you?" said Dor.
"It's my life," said Hunt. "I don't fool with it."
Dor clapped his hands. The dot went from side to side on the machine. Unhindered, it kept scoring points for the server.
The door opened, and in it stood the four men who had escorted Hunt into the house.
"We're going to play Ping-Pong," said Dor. "If he loses, waste him." He turned to Hunt. "That all right with you?"
"Of course. But what if I win?"
"Then you and I will talk."
"We will talk in the six-figure kind of talk?" Hunt said.
"Right, but don't worry about it. In three minutes, you'll be among the dear departed." He reached for the red button to cancel out the game and start a new one.
"Don't do that," said Hunt.
"What?"
"This game is fine," said Hunt.
"I knew it. I knew it. I knew there was a hitch. You want a spot. Well, I'm not spotting anybody no seven points. It's eight to one, make it nine to one, already."
"I'll take the one point. Play," said Hunt, putting his hand on the knob that controlled the left vertical line. The ball pinged gently from the right lower side of the machine toward him.
"It's your funeral," said the maharaji. "And I mean that."
Hunt slowly turned the knob. The vertical line moved up. He reversed the motion of the knob, and the line moved down. He ignored the dot, which moved uninterrupted off his side of the screen.
"Ten to one," said Dor. "One more point."
"You'll never score it," said Hunt. He had the feel now of the knob. He touched the hard black plastic gently with his hand, his fingers gripping easily into the ridges around the knob, molding into them as if the knob had been designed for his hand alone. He could sense the speed of the vertical line, its motion, the turn necessary to move it top, to move it bottom. Without thought, with his brain divorced from what he did, Hunt knew these things. The next serve came from Dor's side of the screen, aimed at the bottom. Dor smiled. Hunt moved his vertical paddle slowly downward, and as the dot rebounded upward, his paddle intercepted it, and the white dot went straight back across the bottom of the screen. Dor moved his line downward directly in front of the dot and let it rebound straight back, along its approach line, back toward Hunt.
Hunt's vertical line had not moved since he had returned the serve. Now it was in the same position to return the ball straight back across the screen, but as the dot approached the electronic paddle, Hunt moved the vertical line and the movement hit the dot, as if off a curved paddle, sending it up toward the top of the screen. Dor moved his paddle up to intercept it right at the top, forming an upside down L between paddle and top of screen, but the dot slid over the top of his paddle and the machine pinged.
"Ten to two," said Hunt with a smile. He realized there was a dead spot at the top of the machine from which a paddle could not return a ball. Now to see if there was one at the bottom of the screen.
The serve switched to Dor now. The game went on. There was a blind spot in the bottom of the screen too. Ten-three, ten-four, ten-five.
Dor played in growing frustration, shouting at the moving dot. Hunt stood silently alongside the machine, moving his control knob slowly, almost casually.
When the score reached ten-ten, Dor smashed the heel of his pudgy left hand against the base of the machine. On its face, it registered TILT, and the electronic paddles disappeared.
"Okay," he said to the four men, who stood just inside the doorway. "Okay, okay. Bug off."
As they left, Hunt said, "That was right-handed. I haven't shown you left-handed yet."
"Don't bother."
"How about left-handed with a blindfold?"
"You can't play this with a blindfold. How can you play if you don't see?"
"You don't have to see," said Hunt. "You've never noticed. The machine makes a different sound when a ball is coming in low than it does when it's coming in high. You can hear a siss that tells you fast or slow."
"You know, I don't think I like you," said Dor.
"I could beat you by telephone," said Hunt.
Dor looked at him, at the studied insolence in Hunt's eyes, so different from the look of bland confusion that was there when he first entered the room. The maharaji decided he could ignore the challenge in order to harness Hunt's talent. He said:
"One hundred thousand dollars. Kill them both."
"Their names?"
"All we've heard so far is Remo and Chiun. They're probably in San Francisco."
"Too bad for them," said Hunt, and he enjoyed saying it.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Today, Remo thought, Joleen was almost human.
She had spent the previous evening sitting quietly, listening intently, as Chiun had gently lectured the girls of the San Francisco Divine Bliss Mission; then late at night she had tried to join Chiun on his sleeping mat in the large bedroom that had been given to Remo and Chiun.
But Chiun had flitted her away with a swish of his hand, and she had settled for Remo and climbed into his bed, and because he was tired and wanted to sleep, Remo serviced her, just so that he did not have to listen to her talk.
The cab episode yesterday had weakened her insane devotion to Maharaji Gupta Mahesh Dor, and their sojourn in bed last night must have weakened her even further, Remo decided, because today she was talking like a human being and not like a recorded announcement.
Chiun, meanwhile, had spent the morning complaining that insects had bothered him all night, while he tried to sleep, and when Remo said they had not bothered him, Chiun had suggested that they would not bother one of their own.
Now they sat in the front seat of a rented car, Joleen sandwiched between Chiun and Remo.
"I do not understand," said Joleen.
"Hear, hear," said Remo.
"If you are a Master," she said, "what then is the maharaji?"
"For small people there are small things," said Chiun. "For large people, there are large things. It is the same with masters."
Joleen did not answer. She clamped her mouth tightly and thought. Chiun looked across her body toward Remo.
"Where are we going?" asked Chiun. "I did not know we could reach Sinanju by automobile."
"We are not going to Sinanju. Now knock it off."
"I think this one is cruel," Joleen said to Chiun, nodding her head toward Remo.
"Ah, how well you know him. See, Remo. She knows you. Cruel."
"Don't forget arrogant," said Remo.
"Yes, child," Chiun said to Joleen. "Do not forget arrogant. Or, for that matter, slothful, inept, lazy, and stupid."
"Yet he is your disciple," she said.
"To make beauty from a diamond is given to many men," said Chiun. "Ah, but to make beauty from a pale piece of pig's ear is something else. That takes the skill of a master. I am still trying to make him seem human. Beauty will come later." He folded his arms.