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visage. The retinue of the Dalai Lama glared at Lobsang and Kula, who glowered
back. Kula fingered his dagger.
Squirrelly swallowed hard. "The food's poisoned, huh?"
"Yes," said Lobsang. "But whose food? The Bunji's or the Dalai's?"
The glaring and glowering resumed.
"Tell you what," offered Squirrelly, wiping her forefinger on the cushion,
"why don't we just throw it all out and start over? I make a mean seven-bean
salad."
"I will fetch the cook," said Kula, storming from the room.
The cook was fetched. He was a plump little Tibetan with a face like unbaked
cookie dough. He trembled like a human pudding in a steady wind.
"Why did you poison the food, cook?" Kula demanded.
"I did not."
Kula brought his silver dagger up to the cook's throbbing jugular. "You lie! I
slit the throats of liars."
"I did not poison the food! It was the Chinese man."
"What Chinese man?"
"He told me that my sister in Lhasa would be violated if I did not look the
other way while he put something in the food."
"Whose food? The Bunji's or the Dalai's?"
"The Bunji's."
"You are certain?"
"I would not lie, Mongol," quavered the cook. "For I know you would slit my
throat if I did this."
"Good. It is good that you told the truth," said Kula, abruptly yanking the
cook's head around to slice his throat open.
"Why did you do that?" Squirrelly cried, turning away.
"I also slit the throats of traitors," said Kula, wiping his blade clean on
the dead man's hair.
Squirrelly stared at the dead cook a long time. Then it hit her.
"They tried to kill me," she said in a dull, shocked voice.
"Yes," said Kula.
"We must find the compassion to forgive them," intoned the Dalai Lama.
"They tried to kill me again. Even with the First Lady on my side." Her voice
was smoldering now.
"The Chinese are in truth demons," said Lobsang. "Demons without souls."
"Take your anger and transmute it into understanding," intoned the Dalai Lama.
"Use your newfound understanding to bring about true harmony. Illuminate the
Universe with your light."
Squirrelly Chicane rose from her cushion, her blue eyes stark. Lifting a
trembling fist to the ceiling, she said, "This means war!"
"War is not the way of Buddha," the Dalai Lama said anxiously. "It is unworthy
of one who is in truth a Living Buddha!'
"Well, war is the way of this Buddha!" Squirrelly vowed. "We're going to march
in there and kick their yellow butts all the way back to Beijing!"
The Dalai bowed his head in sorrow.
"She is a fighting Buddhist, after all," Kula said in an emotion-choked voice.
"It is better than I dared hope for."
Chapter 18
It was the end of the month and time to pay the bills that had piled up on Dr.
Harold W Smith's Spartan desk.
The Folcroft bills were in the low five figures. It was possible to dispose of
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them with only a cursory glance at the various invoices, bills and utility
notices.
That done, he took a deep breath and two Alka-Seltzer washed down by spring
water from his office dispenser before looking into the CURE-related bills.
These-principally credit-card bills and other incidentals-were sent to a blind
post-office box to which only Smith had the key. It was not an ideal
situation, but he could not trust Remo, and certainly not Chiun, to remember
to pay their own bills on time.
And regardless of how high these bills were, Harold W. Smith always paid them
promptly. It rankled his frugal New England soul to spend taxpayer dollars on
what often seemed frivolous items, such as Remo's quarterly car trade-in. But
in the end it was a small price to pay to keep Remo and Chiun, if not happy,
at least not disposed to complain often.
And he never, ever paid credit-card interest. Not in the days when it was a
modest six percent and certainly not now that the credit-card companies had
begun charging usurious interest rates.
The bills this month amounted to a surprisingly small sum, Smith was relieved
to see. Less than fifty thousand dollars. This was down from the last quarter
after Chiun had discovered the Home Shopping Network and splurged, seemingly,
on one of every item offered over a two-week period, including two cases of a
product inexplicably called Hair in a Can.
Smith took another gulp of Alka-Seltzer and examined the charges line by
line.
In the card that was issued to Remo Buttafuoco, he noticed a round-trip
airlines ticket for two. He wondered where Remo and Chiun had gone. Then he
saw on the very next line a two-day car rental from a Los Angeles franchise of
a well-known agency. The next item indicated the car had been serviced in
Malibu.
Smith frowned. Malibu. Malibu. Why did Malibu ring a warning bell in his
memory?
And then he remembered. The attempt on Squirrelly Chicane three days before in
Malibu, and the waves of suspicious dead Chinese bodies that had been washing
up on the beach ever since.
"What on earth..."
Face slack with concern, Smith went to his computer and checked the Bunji
file.
Six bodies now. As he read the latest reports, he realized that the dead men
had been killed in ways that were consistent with both Remo and Chiun's
methods of operation. The disemboweled man might as easily have been
eviscerated by a superhard fingernail as a knife. And those who had been found
with crushed larynxes and faces jellied beyond recognition bore Remo's
hallmarks. He should have recognized the signs before, Smith realized grimly.
Harold Smith picked up the phone and dialed Remo's contact number.
A sleepy voice answered, "I'm not home. Go away."
"Remo. This is Smith."
"Smitty, what's the good word? Or in your case, the bad one?"
"The word," Smith said stiffly, "is that I know you and Chiun were involved
with the Chinese deaths in Malibu."
"Okay," Remo said without skipping a beat. "It's too early in the morning to
lie. We were."
"Please explain the situation to me, Remo," Smith said coldly. "This was not
an authorized operation."
"You'd better talk to Chiun. It was kinda his operation."
"I would like to hear it from you first."
Remo's voice turned away and lifted. "Hey, Chiun! Smitty's on the phone for
you!"
"Remo, I said-"
"Chiun! You up?"
Silence.
Remo's voice came back. "Damn. Hold the phone, Smitty."
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Smith gripped the telephone receiver with unshakable tightness as he listened
to the faint sounds of doors opening and closing and Remo returning.
"He's gone," said Remo.
"I will hear your explanation first."
"You don't understand, Smitty. Chiun's really gone. Two of his trunks are
missing, but the freaking gold's still here."
"Gold. What gold?"
"The freaking gold he got off those Mongols."
"Mongols? What Mongols? Remo, start at the beginning, please."
"How about I just cut to the chase and let's see where that takes us," Remo
said unhappily.
"Go ahead."
"You know the story about the Tibetan monk who showed up on Squirrelly
Chicane's doorstep and proclaimed her the Bunji Lama?"
"Yes."
"Well, first he showed up on my doorstep. Along with that Mongol, Kula.
Remember him from the Gulf War?"
"Go on."
"Well, they asked Chiun to help them find the Bunji Lama!' [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]