“Your body did not even catch it as it should have. It tore right through tissue,” said Chiun.

  “I wasn’t expecting it.”

  “That you do not need to tell me. I saw,” said Chiun. The long white fingernails were clean. “I hate bullets. With guns, as we feared, every man becomes his own assassin.”

  “You know, Little Father, sometimes when I go deep into mind, I wonder whether we should bother with being assassins.”

  “That, of course, is the danger of the deep mind, but do not worry. It passes.”

  Remo stretched and breathed and finally drank a glass of water. Someone was training those kids to be killers. He had thought it was Pell but now Pell was dead. There was someone. Find the someone, take apart his organization and call it a day. The big thing had been solved. The how. It had been kids.

  Funny, none of them had talked by now. The training must have included that. Well, Remo had one lead. The boy who had taken a shot at him. The boy with Ms. Kaufperson. Funny name, Kaufperson.

  “Beware,” said Chiun as Remo reached the door. “Beware of children.”

  “Kids?”

  “Have you ever fought a child?”

  “Not since the fifth grade,” Remo said.

  “Then how can you assume you can match a child? These things should not be assumed.”

  “I haven’t come up against anything I couldn’t handle, and kids are weaker than everything I have handled. Therefore, Little Father, with great courage I go risking the playpen.”

  “Fool,” said Chiun.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Just do not go squandering this precious gift given you, lo, these many years. Do not assume.”

  “All right, Little Father. If it will make you happier, I will not assume.”

  There was only one Kaufperson in the Chicago directory. Remo assumed it was the person he wanted. The listing followed a multitude of Kaufmans and Kaufmanns. Two N’s meant German descent and one N Jewish, usually. If that was so, were there German Kaufpersonns?

  Roberta Kaufperson lived in a modern highrise with new carpeting, fresh-painted walls, and two patrolmen guarding her apartment. He moved back behind a corner as soon as he saw the uniforms. He entered a doorway marked Exit which led to a stairwell. He climbed twelve more flights of stairs until he was on the roof, then figuring just about which area would be directly above Ms. Kaufperson’s apartment, he slipped over the small metal guardrail, caught an edge with one hand, popped out free, caught a window ledge again, popped out, one catch, one pop, twelve times going down and there was the back of the brunette Afro pointed at a television set showing “Sesame Street,” up and lift the window, into the apartment, catch the vocal cords in the left hand and:

  “Don’t be afraid, Ms. Kaufperson, I’m not going to hurt you. I’m here to help you. But you’ve got to tell the policemen at the door to go away. Nod if you will do this.”

  Terror in the gray blue eyes. But the Afro trembled in a nod. Remo released the pressure from the vocal cords. Trembling, Ms. Kaufperson stood up, a full-bodied woman with a good even walk. Remo stayed close to her as she went to the door.

  She pressed a speaker button.

  “Thank you for waiting,” she said. “I’ll be all right now.”

  “You made enough stink to get us here. You sure you don’t want us to stay?”

  “Positive.”

  “Okay. But would you call the captain back at the station? He’s got to approve it.”

  “Certainly.”

  As if moving with computer rhythms, she walked to the telephone, dialed the emergency number of the police department, briefly argued with someone on the other end as to whether she would dial another number for the captain, waited, told someone to remove the two patrolmen, hung up, and shouted:

  “It’s all right. Get out of here.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  Remo heard the officers trudge away down the hall. Ms. Kaufperson removed her blouse with a wild uplift over her head. Her breasts strutted forth erect, with nipples hardened to attention.

  “What’s that about?” asked Remo.

  “Aren’t you going to rape me?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t swing down some rope and risk your life just to say hello.”

  “I want information.”

  “Then you’re not going to rape me?”

  “No.”

  “Are you queer?”

  “No,” said Remo.

  “Then how can you stand there?”

  “I’m just standing. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You look at a half-naked woman and you’re not excited?”

  “I don’t mean to be insulting, but there isn’t a woman I’d climb down a building for.”

  “You are queer. Maybe you want a meaningful relationship. But don’t think I’m going to give you a deep significant part of myself just because you climbed in a window. Sex is one thing. My soul is another.”

  “You can keep both,” Remo said.

  “I thought you were shot,” Ms. Kaufperson said. “That’s it, isn’t it? You’re wounded and too weak for sex.”

  “Right,” said Remo. “Couldn’t possibly hack it.”

  He saw her nipples ease out and the breasts become loose. She put her shirt back on.

  “Then I don’t hold it against you.”

  “Good,” said Remo. “I want to know about that kid you came into the office with today. Who is he? What’s his name? Where does he live?”

  “I’m not permitted to give out that information.”

  “I’m going to get it,” said Remo.

  “I don’t know where that child lives. This was his final day in school. His family moved and he was transferring. I think he went to New York.”

  “Terrific,” Remo said.

  “New York or Los Angeles,” said Ms. Kaufperson. “I really don’t remember.”

  “Great,” Remo said. “Let’s try this one then. The kid who was in the office when Pell got shot. Who is he?”

  “I’m not permitted to give out that information, I told you.”

  “And I told you, I’m going to get it.”

  “Then take it,” she said and she flaunted her chest, resting her hands on her strong hips, whose outlines thrust wide through the coarse woven shirt. Remo could smell her wanting him and he pressed her to him and carried her to the blue-and-white Rya rug on the floor, where his hands busied themselves under her skirt, bringing her close to the edge but not over.

  “The name of the kid,” whispered Remo.

  “Give it to me, you bastard, give it to me.”

  “Give me what I want.”

  “You bastard,” she groaned, soft whines coming from her throat, her groin moving in want, ready for him.

  “The name,” said Remo.

  “Alvin Dewar, nine, 54 Wilton Street, an under-achiever. Give it to me, you bastard.”

  And with the slow meticulous grace of his body, Remo put the groaning, crying woman over the edge, Padoom. She dug her nails into his back and pressed him to her with her legs, pressing, praying he would again and he did again, wonderful.

  “Oh, that was good. Goody, good, good,” she said. “What’s your name?”

  “Remo.”

  “I love that name. What’s your last name?”

  “Spit.”

  “What a fantastic sexy name. Remo Spit.”

  “I’ve got to go. Thanks for the name.”

  “Wait. Do you want his file? I know everything about that Dewar kid. He’s what we call a peer-alienated functioner.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A shithead who can’t get along with anyone else.”

  “I’ve got to go.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “I work alone,” Remo said.

  “You don’t go unless I say so.”

  Remo smiled and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

  “Bye,” he said.

  He felt her lock her ankles. She smiled.

  “See if you can get out,” she said. “I have extraordinary muscle control everywhere. Over all my body. Don’t be frightened if you can’t remove yourself. Some men panic and hurt themselves. Go ahead. Try.”

  What Ms. Kaufperson knew was a simple double pin that used her legs on the small of Remo’s back to pull him into her.

  “No one’s ever been able to break it,” said Ms. Kaufperson, a bubble gum grin spread on a whipped cream happy face.

  With two light presses into her throat, Remo popped out.

  “Ooooh, that was good. In many ways,” said Ms. Kaufperson.

  There was something strange about the apartment that Remo could not quite fathom. It was a modern design, with chrome lights butting into black-and-white leather furniture, thick rugs and paintings framed in gold wire that looked like smears surrounded by gold braid. Incense wafted from five silver goblets. The chairs looked like polished sculpture with small leather pads for those who were able to figure out they were chairs. Something was wrong about this place and Ms. Kaufperson.

  “You’ve got to let me go with you. I can tell you all about the Dewar kid.”

  Remo shrugged. “C’mon. Get dressed and we’ll go.”

  As soon as her skirt was buttoned around her waist, Sashur—as she loudly proclaimed her new name—expounded on her ability to cope with the inferior male psyche. “For thousands of years, men have used women as sexual objects. Now it’s our turn. You’re just a thing to me.”

  “What was your old name?” asked Remo.

  “You mean my male-oppressed name?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Roberta Kaufmann.”

  “Were you ever married to an accountant?”

  “Yes. A pig. He’s dead.”

  “How recent?”

  “Couple of days ago. Probably murdered by the capitalist conspiracy of which he was such a grubby part.”

  “You seem to do all right.”

  “Only because I won’t accept the slave life given me.”

  The building had a concierge at a little desk, who told Ms. Kaufperson that “that person is waiting outside.”

  “Jeezus H. Christ,” said Ms. Kaufperson. “He hangs in there like a toothache.”

  Remo and Sashur took an elevator to the downstairs garage.

  “We’ll have to use my car. I wanted to cab it. No parking places in this city. But I’ll drive. I hate to bring a car into a socio-economically deprived neighborhood where the oppressed lumpen-proletariat will express their struggle for freedom against even such symbols as a car.”

  “What?” Remo asked.

  “Niggers steal hubcaps.”

  “I thought this Dewar kid was white.”

  “He is. He lives in a highrise, but it’s near a slum. Not like this.”

  “What’s this place cost a month to live?” asked Remo.

  “It’s a ripoff. Fifteen hundred a month.”

  “You do that on a teacher’s salary?”

  “Of course not. You don’t think a society as corrupt as this would allow a teacher such luxurious surroundings.”

  “How do you afford it?”

  “I told you. I found a way.”

  “What way?”

  “I have my own liberated way that’s none of your male business.”

  “I think it is,” Remo said. At first, she thought he was going to make love to her in the elevator but when the pain became great she knew there was something else.

  “The money. Where did you get the money?” Remo asked.

  “Divorce settlement. Fathead was loaded.”

  Remo released the grip.

  “I bet you’re happy now, Pig,” said Sashur, rubbing her elbow. “Now you know, so flaunt it. In this oppressed society that’s the only way for a woman to make money, bastard. What’re you, a sadist or something?”

  “A sadist likes pain,” Remo said. “Therefore he is sloppy because he has no purpose in his causing of pain.” And he explained to her that pain was actually the body working well and should be used as a signal device for the mind. The problem with most people was that they ignored the first gentle signals until it was too late and all they had left was strong useless pain.

  “You like pain, you mother, you try this,” said Sashur, and with the toe of her Gucci sandal, sent a wide screaming kick toward Remo’s groin. It struck nothing, and as the elevator door opened, Remo helped her to her feet. She swung at his head and missed. She kicked at his stomach and missed.

  “All right, you win,” she said.

  In the silver Mercedes sports coupe, littered with pamphlets about the oppression of the poor, she insisted that Remo fasten his safety belt. He said he was safer floating free. She said no one was going anywhere without the safety belt fastened. Remo consented. He could still survive a crash, even with a locked safety belt.

  Snap went the belt. Swish went Sashur’s right hand down on Remo’s strapped midsection. Owwww went Sashur’s mouth when she met a knuckle coming up.

  “Animal,” she said and gunned the Mercedes up the ramp to the fading sunlight of a Chicago evening, the evening spread in rich red colors, largely the reflection from tiny pollution particles in the air.

  At a red traffic light, she moaned.

  “Lights bother you?” Remo asked.

  “No. He’s going to get us now.”

  Behind him, Remo saw a balding man in a gray suit dash from Sashur’s building like he was going over hot coal barefoot. He skittered around an oncoming taxi whose tires squealed, burning asphalt and rubber in an effort not to put him away, midsection.

  “It’s nothing, George,” yelled Sashur as the man’s reddened twisted face intruded itself into the driver’s window. “It’s strictly a platonic relationship. You’re so damned jealous it’s sickening, George. George, meet Remo. Remo, meet George, who thinks I sleep with every man I meet.”

  “You can’t do this to me,” said George.

  “You’re incredible. The male psyche is not to be believed.”

  “Why did you try to avoid me?”

  “Why? Why? Because of just this kind of scene. Just think of this kind of suspicious jealous scene.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re always sorry, and you do it just the same.”

  “You know how difficult Justice is sometimes.”

  “Go away,” Sashur said. Bang. George’s head knocked against the oncoming window. Sashur gunned the Mercedes through the red light.

  “Creep. He drives me up a wall. The male mind is so suspicious.”

  Remo flicked her right hand off his thigh.

  “I wasn’t going to hit.”

  “I know that,” Remo said. “What’d he mean about Justice being difficult?”

  “Who knows? Who cares?”

  In a plush white twenty-two-story building, set like white marble in a field of ghetto mud, the doorman halted Ms. Kaufperson and Remo. They had to be announced.

  “Alvin is not here,” came the fuzzy voice through the little speaker.

  “Tell her it’s all right. Ms. Kaufperson is here,” she said to the doorman.

  “It’s a Miss Kaufperson,” the doorman said.

  “Wait a minute, doorperson,” said Sashur. “It’s not Miss Kaufperson, it’s Miz Kaufperson.”

  “It’s Mizzzz Kaufperson,” the doorman said. “Alvin still isn’t home,” came the voice.

  “Tell her we want to speak to her anyway,” said Remo.

  “Well, all right. If you want to,” came the voice over the speaker. “Alvin isn’t in trouble again, is he?”

  “No, no,” said Sashur Kaufperson. “It’s all right.”

  In the elevator Remo asked her why she hadn’t just changed her name to Smith or Jones.

  “I wanted to liberate the Kauf from the Mann. Give a new perspective to the horizons in which women may see themselves.”

  No, Remo didn’t want to do it in the elevator, even though they had all of twenty floors to go and had wasted two of them already.

  “That’s the penthouse,” said Remo. “What’s a public school kid doing living in a penthouse? With all that money, you’d think his folks would send him to a private school.”

  “Some parents will spend money on all sorts of material things. But never on the important things.”

  At the penthouse, Alvin Dewar greeted them himself with a lovely material thing. He held a silver-plated .25 caliber Beretta, and it was pointed up at Remo’s throat.

  Remo felt Ms. Kaufperson pressing to leave, pushing behind him, pushing him out into the barrel of the gun. She had insisted that the old formality of the woman leaving the elevator first be abandoned as the patronizing vestige of sexism it was. So Remo was in the elevator door, facing this peer-alienated functioner with a pistol.

  And it should have been no trouble at all, except Remo could not strike, could not injure the boy. His muscles would not move on this four-foot-seven-inch, ninety-pound alienated functioner. The kid was going to kill him.

  CHAPTER SIX

  REMO SAW THE LITTLE pink index finger tighten on the trigger, and while his own body could not advance on an attack, it could move away. Remo’s left hand snaked behind him to Sashur Kaufperson’s waist, and using the weight of her body and his, he split them both so, like two pendulums colliding, they each bounced to opposite sides of the elevator and the .25 caliber slug plinked into the new polished wood of the wall. It dug a neat dark hole. So did the next. And three others. The elevator door closed. The last shot hit the outside with the sound of a dish breaking on one sharp rock.

  Remo was up and helping Sashur to her feet.

  “He has hostile tendencies,” she said. “I guess he has difficulties relating to extracurricular visits.”

  “He’s a killer,” said Remo, pressing the “open” button. He was shaken. His body had never failed to respond before, but unless the gun had a seventh bullet, he was in no danger. The door opened. Another little dark hole appeared in the polished wood of the elevator wall. Seven bullets.

  “Fucking kid is a killer,” said Ms. Kaufperson, noticing a hole through her Gucci blouse.

  Alvin was fast in his sneakers. He threw the gun wildly away as he turned a corner. Remo was around the corner with him in a loping shuffle. Alvin tried to run behind a man built like a wide landslide, a mountain of a landslide. His forearms were almost as big as Remo’s neck.

 

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