"You mean it's over? That's it?" asked Remo.
"No. There are still some crazy people sticking skeletons in trees and some people who wanted to poison the whole country. I'd still like us to do something about them."
"Make work," said Remo. "Always make work."
In the Hilton Hotel kitchen, a sallow man was preparing a duck in the walk-in freezer, while hopping back and forth from one foot to the other.
The duck had been killed, and was being gutted, plucked, and prepared to the express specifications of a little Oriental on the hotel's 12th floor.
The Oriental had sent back every dish so far that week because it was cooked wrong. Tonight, the Hilton chef vowed to his assistant he would get it right. The customer was always correct. He had sent the new kitchen boy to prepare the fowl for cooking.
The new kitchen boy, who was more of a man and had begun work that day, and would, strangely, never be seen again by the Hilton service staff, now plucked the duck, emptied it of its gizzards, split it, cut it into portions, then took out a small rubber stamp and a thin pad sealed with wax. The wax was indented with the face of a fanged dragon.
The new kitchen boy broke the seal and stamped each section of duck with a light blue USDA which would come off during cooking.
"That's wonderful news, Smitty. Where does it leave me?"
"I suggest you go back to the Angus'. They were killed for a reason. I'm checking various aspects of Vincent's last report. You should talk with his daughter, Victoria, again."
Smith hung up.
Remo slowly put the phone down. Now where was Viki anyway?
"Chiun, have you seen Viki?"
Chiun was sitting on his mat in the middle of his room with his eyes closed.
"She is in her room," he said slowly. "Plotting our end."
Remo cocked his head at the Korean, then decided not to pursue the subject further. Chiun might decide to start talking about fangs and escaping souls again.
"Well, I'll call for dinner and invite her in."
"Good," said Chiun. "Maybe the kitchen will get the duck right tonight."
Remo knocked on Viki's door and waited until he heard a tearful, "Come in."
He entered and saw her stretched across the bed in her Star Trek uniform, crying into the pillow. When she turned and saw him, she leaped up and ran into his arms.
"Oh, Remo," she cried. "Thank Heavens! I heard you come in and you were so long in there with that, that Chiun, and I thought he may have… he may have… oh thank God you're all right!"
She clutched his neck and buried her head on his shoulder. Remo stood holding her quaking body wondering what the hell she thought she was doing. He remembered her doubts before, her veiled innuendos, and Chiun's comment. Plotting their ends?
Viki sobbed a few more times in his shoulder. Remo felt like laughing hysterically. The protectee was trying to kill the protectors, thinking they were the people peelers. Say that five times fast.
Remo patted her back.
"There, there, it's okay. Don't worry about Chiun. I know what I'm doing. Come on over and eat."
Viki looked up at him with her tear-stained eyes. The sobs stopped and her voice became ominous.
"Well, all right, but be careful. Be very, very careful."
The two moved into Remo's room, Viki a step behind him and moving very, very carefully.
This was it, she thought. If the Oriental hadn't told Remo about this afternoon already, he was surely about to. And then she would be forced to play her hand.
But when Chiun saw her, all he did was smile sweetly and say: "Duck tonight."
Viki ducked quickly.
"No," said Remo. "We're having duck for dinner. We had fish last night, so we're having duck tonight. Only the 213th duck I've had for dinner in the last year. Yummy yum yum."
Viki sat tentatively on the bed and watched Remo dial room service. Chiun sat placidly in the middle of the floor, eyes again shut. Could it be a trap, thought Viki.
Could Chiun have already told Remo and his calling, room service be a code to get a team of eliminators up here? If that were the case, she would have to play her hand.
Remo finished talking and sat down on the bed. He patted Viki's knee which made her jump back a half a foot. Remo looked at her strangely, then lay back, putting his feet up on the bed.
They are both relaxing, thought Viki. It must be a ploy to get her to relax too. And when her defenses were down, they would kill her. Remo would take a pillow and suffocate her. Or Chiun would hold her while Remo cut her throat. Or…
Viki suddenly realized that "room service" could be the clean-up detail. The ones who would strip her carcass and put her skeleton up in a tree.
Well, they had another think coming. Let Remo attack her. She'd play her hand. Her hand was just itching to be played.
It was itching to be played for 50 minutes. It was itching when Remo went to sleep. It was itching when Chiun started to sway and sing softly, filling the room with the sound of a high-pitched buzz saw going through a dead tree. It was itching when there came a knock on the door.
Viki leaped up and screamed. Remo was up and across the room before she had even gathered her breath. He swung open the suite door and the bellboy outside jumped across the hall.
His tray of food rattled as the boy looked at Remo's tight face and rumpled clothing. He looked beyond to where Viki stood in her Star Trek suit biting her lower lip. Great beads of sweat slipped across her neck and down her cleavage. The bellboy looked at the small, swaying form of Chiun sitting on the floor.
"Heh, heh," he said. "I hope I didn't interrupt anything. Heh, heh, heh. This is the room that ordered the duck, right?"
"Right," said Remo.
"Of course," said the bellboy as if it figured. "Boiled with rice, as per your instructions."
"Right," said Remo again. "I'll take it in."
"Of course," the bellboy likewise repeated. "Whatever turns you on." He leered toward Viki and winked at Remo.
Remo pulled the cart into the room, pivoted, and with his hip closed the door on the bellboy's outstretched hand.
"Ow," said the bellboy. "Why'd you do that?"
"It's what turns me on," said Remo.
He wheeled the cart over in between the beds, seeing Chiun's eyes open and a massive wet spot across Viki's Federation torso.
"Did you take a shower with your uniform on?" he asked.
Viki slid her hands across her body, realizing for the first time how much she was perspiring.
"Uh, no," she said, smiling nervously. "It, it was very hot in my room." She hoped her hand did not show or else she would have to play it.
"Well, come and get it," said Remo pleasantly. He lifted the cover and, surprisingly, steam rose to the ceiling. In his hotel experiences, the food usually got to the room ice cold. Except for the iced water, of course, which was warm.
"Smells good," said Chiun, rising from his mat as smoothly as the rising steam.
"It smells bland," said Remo.
"Bland in American means good," Chiun instructed Viki. "It is their way of saying I can eat this without boiling my taste buds, curdling my insides, or blocking my passages. Do you want to know what bad means?"
Viki was not buying. She backed up behind the bed and sat down, crossing her legs to bring her hem up.
"Bad means anything that tastes good," said Remo from the other bed, dishing out the duck, "Bad means spicy, bad means fried, bad is Italian, Jewish, French, Mexican, or Chinese cooking."
"Especially Chinese," said Chiun, taking a full plate from Remo's outstretched hand. "See how easy it is to learn when you listen?"
Remo dished up another hearty portion.
"Here," he said to Viki. "You're a growing girl. Eat." He stuck the plate out to her.
This is it, Viki thought. This is their plan. They had gotten their instructions from the Smith guy. They could not get anything from her so now they were going to kill her just like they killed her mother and her father. But they knew she was too big and too smart to attack directly so they were going to poison her.