This was one of the reasons that CURE had selected him as its enforcement arm. No one would miss him. And in truth, he had no one but Chiun. And yet in Chiun, he had everyone, his own heritage which now joined with Sinanju, stretched back over thousands of years. Remo didn't care whether Heritage was true or not. He wanted it to be true. What harm could it do anyone if the book were really nonsense? Maybe people needed it.
"Ah knows ah can find the great Muslim king whats my heritage if ah gets the most difficult part of it. Ah can do it. Ah sho can do it."
"What's the difficult part?" asked Remo.
"All de Saxon Lawds, we got that first hard part in going back a hundred years. A thousand years."
"What hard part?" Remo asked again.
"We can get back to the great Muslim kings of Africa, oncet we gets our fathers. Piggy, he got it closest of all. He know his father got to be one outta three men. He real close."
Chiun raised a finger. "You will use your mind, creature. And you will see before you an old white woman. There are two pictures you will see. One, she closes the door and walks away. The other, she lies dead at your feet. Still and dead. Now, which is a bad picture?"
"Closin' de door, dat be bad."
"Why?" said Chiun.
"Cause she gots her money. Other way, she be daid and ah gots her money."
"Is it not wrong to kill old people?" Chiun asked. He smiled.
"No. Dey de best. You gets de young men, and dey can kill you. Ole people, dey de best. No trouble, specially iffen dey white."
"Thank you," said Chiun. "And you, Remo, would kill this one and call it justice?"
"You're damned right," said Remo.
"This is not a person talking," said Chiun pointing to the young black man in the blue denim jacket with Saxon Lords on the back. "Justice is for persons. But this is not a person. Not even a bad person. A bad person would do what this one has done, but even a bad person would know it was wrong to do it. This thing has no idea that it is wrong to hurt the weak. You cannot do justice to something less than human. Justice is a human concept."
"I don't know," Remo said.
"He right," said Tyrone, sensing impending release. He had been through family court thirteen times and he knew freedom when he saw it.
"Would you kill a giraffe for eating a leaf?" asked Chiun.
"If I were a farmer, I'd sure as hell keep giraffes away from my trees. I'd probably shoot them," Remo said.
"Perhaps. But do not call it justice. Not justice. You cannot punish a leaf for reaching to the light and you cannot do justice to a pear that ripens and falls off a tree. Justice is done to men who have choices."
"I don't think this thing here should live," said Remo.
"And why not?" Chiun asked.
"Because he's a disaster waiting to happen."
"Perhaps," said Chiun, smiling. "But as I said, you are an assassin, the strong deadly arm of emperors. You are not the man who keeps the sewers flowing. That is not your job."
"No suh. You ain' de sewer man. De sewer man. De sewer man. No suh, you ain' de sewer man." Tyrone popped his fingers to his little jingle. His body bounced on the expensive gold and white chair.
Remo looked at the young man. There were many like him. What difference would one more make?
His right hand was numbed but he knew it had been set with more skill than any bone surgeon, and he knew it was healing with the speed of a baby's bone. When your body lived to its maximum, it used itself more efficiently. The hand would heal but would he anger again during work? He looked at his hand and at Tyrone.
"Do you understand what we're talking about?" Remo asked Tyrone.
"Ah doan unnerstan' all dat jive talk."
"Well, jive on this, pal. I think I ought to kill you in return for the crimes you've committed against the world, the worst of which was being born. I think that's justice. Now Chiun here thinks you should live because you're an animal, not a human, and justice has nothing to do with animals. What do you think?"
"Ah thinks ah better get outta heah."
"Hold that thought, Tyrone," Remo said. "You're going to stay alive for awhile, while I decide whether I'm right or Chiun's right."
"Take yo' time. No sense hurrying."
Remo nodded. "Now, some questions. If something was stolen from an apartment during a killing, where would it wind up?"
Tyrone hesitated.
"You're getting ready to lie, Tyrone," said Remo. "That's what people do, not animals. Lie and you're people. Be people, and you're dead, because I'll do justice on you. Understand?"
"Anything what gets stole, it goes to de Revin Wadson."
"What's D. Revin Wadson?" Remo asked.
"Not D. Revin," Tyrone said. "De revin."
"He means the reverend," Chiun said. "I have learned a great deal about this dialect in the last hour."
"Who is he?" asked Remo.
"He a preacher, a big mucky-muck wit housing and like dat."
"And he's a fence?"
"Evybody gots make a libbin'."
"Chiun, who should be responsible for him?" Remo asked. "Who's supposed to teach him that thieving and killing and rape and robbery are wrong?"
"Your society should. All civilized societies do that. They set standards that people should live up to."
"Like schools, parents, churches?" Remo asked.
Chiun nodded.
"You go to school, Tyrone?" Remo asked.
" 'Course ah goes to school."
"To read and things like that?"
"Ah doan read. Ah ain' gone be no brain surgeon. De brain surgeons, dey read. You watch dey lips in de subways. Dey readin' de get-outta-dem signs."
"You know anybody who reads without moving his lips?" Remo asked.
"Not at Malcolm-King-Lumumba High School. You wants some smartass honkey, dey reads up at Bronx High."
"There are other people in the world who read without moving their lips. In fact, most readers don't."
"De Tom blacks. Uncle Tom, Aun' Jemima, dey apin' de whites. Ah can count to a thousand, wanna hear me?"
"No," said Remo.
"One hundred, two hundred, three hundred, four…"
Remo thought about welding Tyrone's two lips together. Tyrone stopped counting to a thousand by hundreds. He saw the glint in Remo's eyes and he wasn't looking for pain.
When the phone rang in their suite upstairs, Remo answered. Chiun watched Tyrone for here was something new. A creature that looked human in form but had no humanity in its soul. He would have to study this one and pass on his wisdom to the next Masters of Sinanju so those Masters would have one less thing new to encounter. It was the new things that could destroy you. There was no greater advantage than familiarity.
"Smitty," said Remo. "I'm close to finding your gadget, I think."
"Good," came the acid voice. "But there's something bigger out there. One of our foreign operating agencies picked up something in Moscow communications. At first we thought Russia was ignorant of all this, and then we found out they were a bit too cute. They sent a man, A Colonel Speskaya."
"I don't know every spitting Russian ding dong," said Remo.
"Well, he's a colonel at age twenty-four and they just don't make people colonels at that age. If that's any help."
"I got enough with my job without keeping up with Russian administration," Remo said.
Chiun nodded sagely. The most American thing about Americans was that they tried to change everything, especially when it worked well enough already. Thus, seeing the beautiful handiwork of the Master of Sinanju in transforming Remo, they constantly tried to make Remo, the assassin, into something else. Not that the other things were unworthy. But anyone with enough effort could become a detective or a spy. It took special qualities to be an assassin. It was good to see Remo resisting the obscene blandishments of Smith. Chiun nodded at Remo, letting him know he was doing the right thing in resisting Smith's nonsense.