"I'm the man from Hebrew National," said Remo.
Jacob moved by instinct to slash his gun barrel across Remo's face but Remo's face was not where it had been a moment before and somehow Jacob felt his arm swing farther than it had ever swung before.
Then there was a crack and Jacob felt the cold steel of his own gun bouncing off his own face and then he didn't feel anything and wouldn't until he woke, in excruciating pain, in a Houston emergency room three hours later.
There he would wait 45 minutes, rocking to and fro on a wooden bench watching small drops of blood gather in his lap, until a nurse came over to inform him that he would need at least a thousand dollars worth of surgery and did he know his Blue Cross/Blue Shield number?
Texas Solly was trying not to upchuck while kissing Remo's hush puppies. He hacked once more to loosen an acid tasting piece of fried rib stuck in the back of his throat, swallowed, then begged: "Please, don't kill me yet, let me explain."
Remo looked down critically and slowly pointed at Solly's face.
"You… have some sauce on your cheek," he said. He reached over and pulled a soiled tissue from Weinstein's desk between Irving, who was snoring, and Jacob, whose blood was bubbling between his mashed teeth.
"Thank you," said Texas Solly, wiping his mouth. "You'll let me explain?"
"Go ahead," said Remo.
"These guys weren't for you," Texas Solly began hurriedly, picking himself off his knees and waving at the hulks on his desk. "I was being bugged by an antimeat group recently and…"
"Wait a minute," said Remo. "Was this a bunch of twits waving signs and screaming about swine flu? A redhead in charge?"
"Yeah, that's them," said Solly. "Were they your spies?"
"Never mind," said Remo. "Go ahead with your story."
"Yeah, well," said Solly. "I swore I'd have your shipment or your money today and I'm as good as my word. You can tell Jaccalini that he'll get his steaks and his money back too. You tell Jaccalini that's the stuff Texas Solly Weinstein is made of."
"That's terrific," said Remo, wondering if there could be two Texas Solly Weinsteins in Houston and if he had met the second one. "Where can I find him?"
"Who?" said Solly.
"Jaccalini," said Remo.
Texas Solly stared at Remo for a second. Then he laughed.
"Very funny, Rico. Very funny. You are Rico Shapiro, aren't you?"
Remo shook his head. "Never heard of him," he said.
Texas Solly's laugh took on a brittle quality and his smile grew lopsided. He slowly, moved behind his desk, putting his hand under the top drawer, as if for, support.
Remo moved over and pushed the alarm mechanism into the floor by pressing his palm through the top of the desk. Texas Solly felt the alarm system brush by his crooked finger.
He swallowed very slowly, looking from the palm-shaped hole in his desk to Remo's face.
"I'm the man from Hebrew National," said Remo. "Talk to me. And no baloney."
Sunset over Sinanju.
"And the colors were the colors of the rainbow. Lo, the pinks and oranges and purples and reds and colors not given names, such was their brilliance, shone across the humble village. Thus had it been, thus shall it always be. Until the ocean meets the sky and the sky meets the earth."
Chiun slowly put down his quill pen and looked over his parchment. Over his shoulder the real sun was really setting over the real Houston.
The purples and oranges here were great heavy coats of carbon-monoxide exhaust and factory wastes of all denominations. A solid layer of black contained these vibrant colors and the rest of the sky was bathed in an angry rose.
People in their cars on the highway, in their highrise apartments and offices were watching this light and thinking it beautiful, not knowing that in fewer years than they cared to think about, perhaps even before they themselves died, these colors would come to claim their children.
These colors would reach beyond all their windows and steel and concrete and air conditioners and humidifiers and slowly choke their sons and their daughters to death.
The death of America would not come with a bang or a whimper. It would come with a gurgle.
Chiun, the Master, thought of this and so brought the sun down across his tiny fishing village, his home, of Sinanju.
Where the people only breathed the smell of fish and the salt of the sea.
There was a tiny knock on the hotel door. Before that, there had been the careful padding of feet across the hall carpet. Then the minute air displacement of a curved, long haired body outside the door. And then, clearly, the fast incorrect breathing of one trying to control excitement.
Chiun did not let all this racket disturb his work. That was the kind of writer he was.
"Come in, my child," he said. "I am finished now."
The door opened a crack and then there was another tiny knock.
"Chiun? It's me, Viki. Can I come in?"
Without waiting for an answer, she let the door slowly swing open to expose… her.
She stood in the hallway with her long brown hair cascading across her head and shoulders like thick waves of water over a mountainside. Her brown eyes were wide and clear and her soft, full, rose lips were slightly parted.
She was dressed in a floor-length cotton robe which swept in at her waist and under her full breasts which were now crashing against the soft fabric in great heaves.
She stood still for a heartbeat then swung into the room, closing the door behind her.
Chiun remained with his back toward the window in the lotus position. Viki oozed across the room toward him, sinking onto her knees as she grew near.
"I was frightened," she breathed. "All alone in my room…"
She let the sentence die since Chiun seemed grandly disinterested. She instead lowered her body onto the sides of her legs to give the little Oriental a better view of her breasts. Chiun looked across the expanse that was Viki Angus and intoned: "We are never truly alone."
"I know," sighed Viki, more in relief than the comfort of company. "I have you and… and Remo."
"What has he done to deserve two ands?" asked Chiun.
Viki did not like that. She did not like the way the little Oriental seemed to read her mind everytime she opened her mouth or made a move. If she were not so sure of herself she could have sworn he was humoring her.
But the little man was human, so a little skin and a few words in his ear would surely get a rise out of him. It had worked on Remo, it should work on Remo's partner.
Viki shifted her position to bring her naked leg up and out from under her cotton robe. The garment fell back, hanging over one creamy naked thigh, which rose in front of two nearly naked creamy breasts, which were just under a creamy naked neck and a painfully innocent creamy naked face.
"How well do you know Remo?" she asked tentatively.
"You see," said Chiun. "As long as the mind questions, seeks answers, investigates new areas of endeavor, we are never truly alone. Often, while pondering many questions of the day, I feel comforted with the memories of my ancestors. No, one is truly never alone."
Viki stared, wondering if perhaps the old man was a diversion, prepared by the Bureau of Agriculture to take the heat off their main agent, Remo.
No matter, Viki thought. They were both involved in the murder of her parents. They both had to die.
Perhaps Chiun went for a more intellectual approach. Viki tucked her leg back under her robe and moved her head in conspiratorially.
"The reason I ask is that I accidentally recorded a top-secret computer transmission at Yale and… well, Remo was named on it."
Chiun turned quickly toward her and said, "Ah, you see. With machines we can derive comfort and pleasure. I have a machine that records my daytime dramas. That is, it did before they failed me. Tell me, is not your computer like my machine?"