The Destroyer 038 - Bay City Blast by Warren Murphy & Richard Sapir

Author:Warren Murphy & Richard Sapir
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Pulp Action
Publisher: PINNACLE BOOKS

CHAPTER EIGHT

The ping pong ball whizzed off Chi­un’s fin­ger­tips. It head­ed straight across the room to­ward Re­mo’s left hand. At the last split sec­ond, the ball veered up­ward and sharply to the right, to­ward Re­mo’s head. Be­fore it touched flesh, Re­mo drove his right hand for­ward. The hard fin­ger­tips slammed in­to the cen­ter of the ball. The lit­tle plas­tic sphere broke in two halves, which rapped off the pan­elled wall of the mo­tel room with an al­most si­mul­ta­ne­ous tap-​tap sound. The rug near the wall was lit­tered with half ping pong balls.

“I don’t like this as­sign­ment, Lit­tle Fa­ther,” Re­mo said.

“Why not?” Chi­un asked. He was reach­ing to­ward a box of ping pong balls on the ta­ble be­hind him.

“Be­cause we’re body­guards again. I don’t like be­ing a body­guard. That’s not what you trained me for.”

“I like you as a body­guard bet­ter than I like you as a de­tec­tive,” Chi­un said. “For that, you are to­tal­ly un­trained.” He flashed an­oth­er ping pong ball at Re­mo from be­hind his back. The ball arced to­ward the younger man in a high lazy loop, then at the last mo­ment, seemed to in­crease in speed. Re­mo got his left hand up to block the ball from hit­ting his face, but his stroke was not per­fect, and in­stead of the fin­ger­tips split­ting the ball in two, they mere­ly dent­ed it and drove it hard off the wood-​pan­elled wall.

“Don’t carp about my be­ing a de­tec­tive,” Re­mo said.

“I nev­er carp,” Chi­un said. “You should not mind be­ing called a body­guard. To be a body­guard in time of trou­ble means that we will prac­tice our as­sas­sin’s art. And, if it is not a time of trou­ble, who cares what we are called be­cause we are paid for rest­ing?”

“Maybe you’re right,” Re­mo said.

Chi­un put his hands at his sides, sig­nal­ing that the ex­er­cise had en­tered a rest pe­ri­od. Re­mo re­laxed.

“You must re­mem­ber,” Chi­un said, “that Em­per­or Smith is crazy just as all em­per­ors are crazy. They nev­er know what we do. But he al­ways pays on time. You buy what you wish. The gold gets to the vil­lage of Sinan­ju on time.” He paused. “Did I ev­er tell you why that is im­por­tant?”

“Yes, Chi­un,” Re­mo said weari­ly. “No more than five hun­dred times though. Poor vil­lage, throw ba­bies in­to bay to drown when there’s not enough to eat, mas­ters work as as­sas­sins for em­per­ors, get mon­ey, feed vil­lage, no more drown­ing kids. I got it. See, I know it well.”

“It does not al­ways work thus­ly,” Chi­un said. “Once, with the Mas­ter Shang-​tu . . .”

“Nev­er heard of him,” Re­mo said. He had heard of the Eng and Chi­un and Wo-​Ti and a half dozen oth­er Mas­ters-​down through his­to­ry, in­clud­ing the great­est of them all, the great Mas­ter Wang, but Chi­un’s lec­tur­ing had, up till now, nev­er men­tioned Shang-​tu.

“He was not mem­orable,” Chi­un said. “He pro­duced no new art and he pro­duced no new busi­ness. He was con­tent mere­ly to ser­vice ac­counts that Mas­ters be­fore him had cre­at­ed. One of these ac­counts was a Siamese king, for whom Shang-​tu had per­formed a great ser­vice.

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