The Seventh Stone, page 10
“But why didn’t anybody try to kill you at the President’s news conference then, if they tried out at the Indian reservation?”
Remo thought a moment, then said, “Maybe somebody was trying to film me. That happened at the reservation. The networks were there, but there was also an independent film crew. They took pictures of me and the self-detonating hitmen. Super-speed film,” he said. Remo went on to explain about his meeting with the late William and Ethel Wonder, the missing film and the odd coincidence that the same cameraman had covered both the news conferences and the demonstration in Montana.
“I think you’re right,” Smith said. “I think someone is trying to get your moves on film so that they can figure out a way to gun you down.”
“Gun me down? You’ve been watching gangster movies again,” Remo said.
“Take a vacation,” Smith said, “while I figure this out.”
“I already took one. Four fun-filled days of surf, sand and sun.”
“Take another one. Go back to Little Exuma. You’re a property owner now. Go check your property,” Smith said. “Inspect your condominium.”
“I don’t need another vacation. I’m still recovering from the last one.”
“It’s not a suggestion, Remo. It’s an order. Go back to Little Exuma. If you don’t want to rest, don’t rest, but just stay out of the way while I try to find out who’s after you. Please,” Smith said, and then gently cradled the receiver.
At the other end of the line, Remo listened to the pleasant humming noise for a moment, then hung up the phone. Why had Smitty been so upset? People were always trying to kill Remo. Why worry so much about a few inept would-be assassins and a missing canister of high-speed film?
It was Smitty who really needed to take a vacation. Remo didn’t.
He made his way through the crowded airport to the cocktail lounge where Kim Kiley was waiting for him. She was sitting in a back booth, staring thoughtfully into a wineglass as if it might, in some small way, hold a portent of things to come.
When she saw him approaching, she looked up and smiled at him with a smile so warm, so beckoning that Remo felt a tingling in his body that was so old, it was now new.
As he sat down, she said, “I wish we could run away for a while together.”
“How does Little Exuma sound to you?” Remo asked.
“It sounds fine as long as it includes you.”
“Okay. It’s agreed,” Remo said. “Little Exuma.”
“I can work on my tan,” Kim Kiley said.
“You can work on my tan too,” Remo said and Kim reached across the table and gently brushed his cheek with her fingertips.
“I’m looking forward to working on your tan. And other things,” she said.
· · ·
The ink-charged brush moved across the parchment, forming the necessary characters with strokes as sure and smooth as the movement of a seabird’s wing. Smiling, Chiun studied the page. He had finally done it, finally managed to include in the ongoing history of Sinanju all that was necessary to tell about Remo and his origins. The eyes and the skin color had been giving him problems, but he had solved that with a pair of master strokes. He had written that Remo had a certain roundness of eye which was regarded as attractive by many people in the world who suffered from the round-eye affliction.
This, Chiun had said, made Remo a definite asset when seeking contracts in many places in the world because these round-eyed things like to deal with one who resembles their own kind. Chiun was proud of himself for turning a negative into a positive.
And Remo’s skin color? Chiun had solved that even more easily. From now on, in the histories of Sinanju, Remo would be referred to as “Remo the Fair.”
There. It was written. All the facts were there for anyone to see and he, Chiun, could not be blamed if some future Master of Sinanju was unable to see the truth inside the truth.
With a sigh of satisfaction, Chiun put down the bamboo-handled brush. Someday, he thought, he would find a truly satisfactory way of dealing with Remo’s birthplace. He would find a way of writing Newark, New Jersey, to make it sound as if it were part of Sinanju. But that would be later.
He broke off his reverie as he saw two figures advancing up the sun-swept beach. Remo was back and that was good. But there was a young woman with him and that was not good at all.
This was the hiding time and Remo, as a new Master, should withdraw from the world for a while, and that meant withdrawing from people too. The hiding time would not last much longer; Chiun was sure of that. But it should not be ignored. Remo just did not understand.
“Little Father, I’m back.”
“Yes, you are back.” Chiun glanced beyond Remo to the girl who lingered at the edge of the beach.
“I brought a friend along.”
“A friend,” Chiun sputtered. “And what am I?”
“All right, I’ll play your silly game,” Remo said. “What are you?”
“She is your friend, and I? A millstone around your neck, no doubt. An incurable disease. Some old robe, fraying at the edges, to be cast on the trash heap without a moment’s thought.”
Remo sighed. “You are my friend, Little Father, as you know. And as you know, you are a great deal more. And you are also, at times, a giant-sized pain in my rear end.”
Chiun moaned. “Words to pierce an old man’s heart.” His thin voice quavered. “It is not enough that I have given you Sinanju? Devoted my best years to your training and well-being?” There was a rustle of silk as he raised one frail-looking hand to his forehead in a gesture that Sarah Bernhardt would have loved. “It is obviously not enough for you, however.”
“I said you were my friend.”
“Well, if I am your friend, why do you have to have another one?”
“Because she’s a different kind of friend. There isn’t any law that says I can’t have more than one friend. Her name is Kim Kiley and you might even like her if you give her half a chance.”
“This is not the time for new friendship.” Chiun’s tone was grave, his hazel eyes solemn. “You must rest for a while. You should study the scrolls and practice and nothing more. Scrolls are restful. Practice is restful. Women, as all know, are not restful. They are fickle and frivolous. That one has already vanished.”
Remo didn’t bother to turn around. “She said she was going to walk along the beach while I talked to you. She’ll be back in a while.”
“Perhaps the sea will swallow her up.”
“I wouldn’t get my hopes up,” Remo said.
“What good is a friend if you do not heed his advice? Send her away.”
“She just got here,” Remo said.
“Perfect,” Chiun said, nodding to himself as he agreed with himself. “Then she can go away before she gets comfortable. Then you and I can have a good vacation.”
Remo could feel it again, that restless impatience building up inside him. The urge to break things for no other reason than to see if the separate pieces were more interesting than the whole thing.
“I’m going for a walk on the beach,” Remo said abruptly. “I let you and Smitty con me into coming down here in the first place. Now with Kim here for company, maybe I can have a good time. Just think, Little Father. Maybe we’ll find out a new way to counteract the hiding period. You can write it in your histories and the next five thousand years of Sinanju will love you for it.”
“Go ahead,” Chiun snapped. “Go. No need to tell me where you’re going. I’ll just sit here by myself. Alone. In the dark. Like some old ripped sock no longer worth the mending.”
Remo decided not to point out that it wouldn’t be dark for four more hours yet. He called over his shoulder as he walked away: “Whatever makes you happy. And I know that misery usually does.”
Chiun’s hazel eyes followed Remo until he disappeared around the curve of the white sand beach. He wished that he could make Remo understand, but Remo had not grown up in the village of Sinanju. He had never played the hiding game, never prepared himself for the time when his instincts would have to be stronger than his mind or even his heart. Remo had grown up playing a game called “stickball.” Chiun wondered what major challenge of adult life “stickball” prepared you for. Even if you could, as Remo contended, hit the ball four sewers. Whatever that was.
Sighing again, Chiun looked back down at the scroll. There was nothing he could do for Remo, nothing but watch and wait until the hiding time had passed. This was not, Chiun decided, a good vacation at all.
· · ·
Remo watched as Kim moved toward him, running coltishly through the surf, her dark hair windblown and free, her long shapely legs churning up the shallow water. She looked innocent and tomboyish with her pants rolled up and her shirttail loose and flapping. She looked like the Kim Kiley he remembered from the movies.
“I found this great cave,” she called out breathlessly. A few seconds later, she wrapped her arms around Remo’s neck, lightly brushed her lips against his and then, tugging at his hand, led him along the beach like a child’s toy on a string.
“You’ve got to see it,” she said. “The sun and the water make these crazy beautiful patterns on the ceiling. It’s worth the whole trip here, it’s so beautiful.”
“You ought to give guided tours,” said Remo.
“You’re getting the first, last and only one. The one with all the personal extras thrown in at no additional charge.”
“I like the sound of that,” said Remo, who did.
“You’d better,” she warned him with a gamin grin. She linked her arm through Remo’s and led him over the rocks and along a strip of narrow beach.
“There it is.” She pointed toward the back of the deserted cove. The entrance to the cave was a jagged, mouth-shaped opening in the side of a sheer-faced cliff. It seemed to beckon them, to pull them in of its own accord like the gaping hungry maw of some prehistoric predator who, despite the passage of ages, had never lost its appetite.
· · ·
Chiun found it soothing to talk to someone who not only listened but seemed to hang on his every word. Here at last was a white man who respected age and wisdom. In other words, someone not at all like Remo.
“I saw your friend just a few minutes ago,” Reginald Woburn III said when Chiun finished a lengthy speech on ingratitude. “He was walking with a pretty girl toward the caves at the far end of the island.”
“What a way to spend a vacation,” Chiun sighed. “Walking on the beach with a beautiful woman. If he would only listen to me, we could be having a really good time.”
“I only mentioned it because those caves can be pretty dangerous. Very pretty scenery when the tide is out but a real death trap when it starts pouring back in. It’s nearly impossible to swim out against the onrushing tide. They lost a couple of tourists there early this season. Found the bodies the next morning, all gray and bloated. Fish ate the eyes out.” Reggie’s smile broadened as, he listed the details. “Would have put a real crimp in the tourist business if they hadn’t taken the bodies and dumped them over on Martinique. The couple was on the Buena Budget Excursion Special and Martinique was their next stop anyway. But they died here.”
“An old Korean proverb,” Chiun said. “When death speaks, everyone listens.”
“But I am worried about your friends,” Reggie said.
“Why?” Chiun frowned.
“The tide could trap them in one of those caves,” Reggie said, warming to his subject. “They wouldn’t realize it until it was too late. They’d be fighting an oncoming wall of water, swimming helplessly, hopelessly against the tide. Holding their breaths until their faces turned color and their lungs burst from the strain. They’d float around for a while, their bodies battering against the rocks. Then the fish would start on them. Nibble here, small bite there. They always seem to go for the eyes first. And then if there’s enough blood in the water, they might get sharks. With those big jaws that tear off limbs the way we snap a celery stalk. Then you’d really see action. The sea would turn a dark purple red and be churning. A feeding frenzy.” Reggie sighed. Little drops of spittle clung to the corners of his mouth. His heart was thundering as if he were a marathon runner approaching the finish line. He felt a warmth in his groin that even sex couldn’t rival. “I can see it all quite clearly. It could very easily happen to your friends.”
“That woman is no friend of mine,” Chiun snapped.
“What about the man?”
Chiun was thinking. “I suppose a person could get killed that way. If he were truly stupid.”
“Then what about your friend?” Reggie said again.
“Remo has his moments,” said Chiun. “But even he isn’t that stupid.”
CHAPTER NINE
“AM I THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN you’ve ever known?” Kim whispered softly.
She lay snuggled in the crook of Remo’s arm, the two of them naked on the warm gritty sand inside the cave, watching the fantastic light show provided by the setting sun as its multicolored rainbow rays were reflected off the clear blue water. It was cool and dry in the cave and the sound of the waves against the distant rocks was better than any soundtrack Hollywood had ever come up with.
After a long silent minute, Kim frowned and poked Remo in the ribs. “That was supposed to be an easy question. And don’t you tell me you’re thinking about it.”
Remo ruffled her dark lustrous hair. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known,” he said.
Kim smiled. “Everybody tells me that.”
“Who’s everybody?” It was one of those things that Remo wondered about every now and again. How many bodies did it take to make an everybody?
“You know. Everybody. Friends, admirers, agents, producers and directors.” She counted them off, one by one, on her long slender fingers. “And of course my thousands of loyal and devoted fans. I get over five hundred letters a week that say they love me.”
“You answer them?” Remo was curious. He never got any mail. Even when he was alive, no one wrote to him, and now that he was supposed to be dead, the mail hadn’t changed. Chiun had once, by mistake, rented a post-office box in Secaucus, New Jersey, but all the mail that came had been addressed to Chiun and he wouldn’t show Remo any of it.
Kim was laughing. “Answer the mail? Are you crazy? Who’s got time for that crapola? I’m not going to risk writer’s cramp just to make some yahoo’s day. I did answer some fan letters years ago when I was just starting out and you know what happened?”
“No.”
“I broke a goddamned nail. It hurt like hell and it was months before they were all the same length again.” She nestled closer to Remo, her full perfect breasts brushing against his chest. Remo touched her hand to his lips and kissed her finger nails. It was a small gesture but he could feel Kim Kiley tremble.
“It was a harrowing experience,” she said. “I’m just not into self-destruction. The writing was bad enough, but that wasn’t all. You just try licking a couple of rolls of stamps sometime. It makes your tongue feel like something furry curled up and died on it.”
“Then you don’t answer your fan mail, at all?”
“Sure I do. I’ve got this service that takes care of it. Yours Truly Incorporated. They handle all the big stars’ mail. They’ve got this room full of old ladies who just sit there signing letters all day long. It’s a great system.” Kim grinned. “They sign the junk mail and I sign the contracts for three-picture deals. What could be fairer than that?”
“Nothing, I guess,” Remo said. “But I think if anybody ever wrote me a letter, I’d answer it myself.”
“Well, that’s you,” Kim said. She smiled at him, then began to move her long shapely legs, wrapping one around Remo’s while she slowly moved the other back and forth over his groin in a gentle massaging motion. Remo lay there still, smiling like a big cat on a sunny windowsill, enjoying it much too much, but doing nothing to respond.
This vacation stuff wasn’t so bad after all, he thought. He felt an odd contentment, a loosening of his inner control, and while Chiun might find that dangerous and perhaps it was in most contexts, right now it allowed Remo to really enjoy the warm silky texture of the body molded to his, the play of Kim’s busy hands and legs as she strove to please him. Remo stirred, stretched and pulled her gently on top of him. Kim let out a low moan as their two bodies melded together in a fire-flash of pure energy.
The scent of her perfume filled Remo’s nostrils with an essence of dark primal earth. He had a sudden vision of a stone altar in a shadow-dappled jungle clearing, sunlight filtering through the treetops and bright tropical flowers growing beside a clear blue stream. The scent was a heady mixture of musk and oils and spices.
Gently, Remo made their bodies into one. Kim drew a long shuddery breath and held him tight. “Nothing like this before,” she said. “Nothing like this.”
“Don’t talk,” Remo said.
“It’s like drugs,” she said. “It’s too high.”
“Shhhh,” said Remo.
“It’s wing walking,” she said.
“Don’t say anything. Listen to the waves,” Remo said. Through a few strands of ebon hair, Remo could see the last of the setting sun. The cooling breeze that filled the cave was heavy with salt and the gentle murmur of the waves had grown to a deep-throated thundering.
“Waves turn me on,” Kim shouted but the words were scarcely audible as they were swallowed up by the furious pounding of the surf. She clung to Remo, her supple body shuddering slightly like a reed in a breeze. She parted her full lips and released a sound between a sigh and a moan and Remo stayed with her and pulled her closer and the sound turned to a long scream. Her body turned atop him and she lay there for a long minute before she eased herself free and rolled off Remo and stretched out on the sand beside him again.
He turned to her and she said something but he could not hear the words as the sound of the sea filled the cave like the blood-lust roar of the crowd in an ancient Roman arena.
Remo saw a shadow of fear cloud the placid expression on her beautiful face. As she struggled to her feet, Remo turned and saw it coming toward them—a solid towering wall of water that blocked out the last of the dying sun and filled the mouth of the cave with its ominous fury. It came rushing toward them, all the power of the uncaring sea channeled by the narrow walls of the cave, a destructive force that would smash them against the rocks, battered, bloody and broken, gasping for one last breath before the briny sea water filled their lungs.
