"I got a bad back," Remo replied unconcernedly. The Columbian was struggling with an Uzi submachine gun, trying to make his numb fingers release the safety. Fester noticed this, realized the Colombian had a better shot at him than he had at the Colombian, and yelled his answer.
"Deal! Now, let's go!"
Remo slid off the rock like a spider.
The Colombian stood up suddenly, the Uzi clenched in both hands. He opened up just as Remo's feet touched shore.
Remo wove through the storm of lead as if it were a light rain. Bullets kicked up rock dust, shredded weeds, and hit everything in sight. Except Remo Williams. Remo stepped lightly onto the boat. The Colombian stood there, his mouth slack and his gun smoking and empty.
"Habla espanol?" the Colombian asked.
"No. Speak Korean?"
"No, senor."
"Too bad," said Remo, and ignoring the Colombian, he dragged the heavy anchor chain up from the water.
"What are you doing?" Fester Doggins called from behind the pickup. "Stop screwing around. Whack him. "
"Hold your horses," Remo said, examining the stubborn anchor. It was one of those that couldn't be raised onto the deck because the chain went through a brassringed hole in the bow. The flukes had hung up on the ring. Remo chopped at the fine wood of the gunwale and twisted the brass fittings away. The anchor came loose. It was very heavy and had two flukes. Remo carried it back to the wheelhouse, dragging the chain behind him like the Ghost of Christmas Past.
The Colombian regarded the man approaching him stupidly. He saw a skinny young man with brown hair and deep-set brown eyes carrying an anchor that should have bent him double. And the man carried it in one hand.
Suddenly the skinny man wrapped the flukes around the Colombian's neck and swiftly wound the heavy, slimy chain around the rest of his body.
"Que pasa?"
"You," Remo said. "You passa. Good-bye." And Remo threw the man overboard. Fester Doggins joined Remo on deck.
"Too bad," Fester said as they watched the bubbles blurp to the surface and eventually stop. "He was my best connection."
"You know what they say," Remo told him. "The thrill can kill." Then he added, "You'd better get started. You have a lot of white stuff to lug."
"No chance," said Fester Doggins, shoving a double-barreled shotgun into Remo's stomach.
"Let me guess," Remo said. "It was you double-crossing the other guy?"
"Yup. "
"And now you're double-crossing me."
"Yup," said Fester Doggins. "And at point-blank range there's no way you're gonna skip out of the way of double-O buckshot."
"Rocks," corrected Remo. "They're just rocks."
"And you're about to eat a bellyful without having to use your mouth," Fester Doggins said as he cocked both barrels.
"One of us is," said Remo, taking the twin barrels in one hand so fast that Fester Doggins could not react. Remo squeezed. The sound was like a tailpipe being run over. Fester looked down.
There was a hitch in both barrels. If he fired now, the blowback would rip his own belly open.
Fester looked at Remo's rail-thin arm, which was bare to the bicep.
"You don't look that strong," he said dully.
"And you don't look that dumb," replied Remo, tossing the useless shotgun into the sea. "Now, load." Fester Doggins was out of shape. It took him three hours to drag the cocaine onto shore and into the back of the pickup. When he was done, he sat down on the ground and concentrated on his breathing.
Remo got up from his seat in the cabin, where he had been drinking a tall glass of mineral water from the Colombian's well-stocked bar. He jumped onto shore and casually gave the yacht a shove. The yacht slid off and out to sea.
"That was an expensive yacht," huffed Fester Doggins.
"Maybe some deserving orphan will find it," Remo said absently.
"Sure, be casual. You can buy three of them after you resell my coke. Thief. "
Remo yanked Fester to his feet and dragged him over to the pickup truck. He set him behind the wheel and placed both hands on the steering wheel, which had a rattlesnake-skin cover. The spokes of the wheel were shiny chrome and there was a series of round holes punched in them. Remo widened two holes with his fingers, inserted Fester Doggins' hands into the holes up to the wrists, and scrunched the holes so that Fester was virtually handcuffed to the steering wheel.
"I don't think I can steer too good with my hands like this," Fester pointed out.
Remo released the hand brake, and the pickup started to roll toward the water.
"Hey, what're you doing?"
"Saying good-bye," said Remo, walking along with the truck. "Good-bye."
"Hey, I'll drown."
"Tough. You sell dope. Dope kills people. Don't you watch the public service messages?"
"Hey, there's a fortune in coke in the back of this thing. It's all yours."
"Don't want it," said Remo, kicking a stone out of the way at the right-front tire. The pickup continued lurching along. Fester Doggins tried to steer away from the water, but the skinny guy kept straightening the wheel. "Hey, you're throwin' away a fortune."
"So?"
"Can't we deal?"
"No, "
"You're gonna let me die?"
"Drown, actually. "
The awful truth sank into Fester Doggins' head. "Well, how about a last toot, then?"
"No time. Here comes the water. Think nice thoughts. They'll be your last. "
"Hey, let's talk about this. Tell me what you want! What do I gotta do? Tell me!"
"Just say no."
"Nooo!" said Fester Doggins as the truck's front tires jumped the seawall. The truck slid along its chassis and nosed into the water. It stopped with the rear deck sticking up and the cab entirely underwater. Gasoline mixing with the water made rainbows in the bubbles of Fester's last breaths.
"Too late," said Remo, and sauntered off.
The Master of Sinanju was waiting for Remo at the motel room. Chiun held up a long-nailed finger at Remo's entrance.
Remo walked on cat feet to see what he was watching. Chiun, reigning Master of Sinanju, had rearranged the furniture since they had checked in this morning. The big double beds were vertically stacked in a corner and the chairs and tables floated in the pool outside the sliding glass doors. Only the big TV remained, and it was set in the middle of the bare floor.
Chiun sat on a tatami mat three feet in front of the TV. His wrinkled visage was fixed on the screen. His bright hazel eyes were rapt. He wore a brocaded robe that was heavy enough to be put into service as a throw rug in a British castle.
Remo, seeing that his trainer was intent upon the television, watched curiously.
On the screen, a large black woman in a tent dress smiled into a hand microphone. She was surrounded by a studio audience.
"Isn't that-?" Remo began.
"Hush!" Chiun said.
A colorful graphic appeared over the woman's bovine face as the audience began to applaud vigorously. The graphic read: "The Copra Inisfree Show." Remo was surprised to see Chiun applauding too.
Remo shrugged and sat down next to the Master of Sinanju.
"Today," Copra Inisfree rumbled out in a voice like coffee percolating, "parents who trade their children for rare comic books. After this."
"Yesterday, it was people who worship cheese," Chiun told Remo during the panty-hose commercial.
"Amazing," Remo said.
"Yes, I agree. To think that your government allows this woman to broadcast to the world what imbeciles comprise its citizenry."
"That wasn't what I meant. I saw her in a movie last year. The Colored People, or something like that. She was very fat."
"She has been on a diet. She talks about it incessantly."
"That's the amazing part I was getting at. She lost all that weight and she still looks like a lady wrestler."