Chinese Puzzle

The houses on both sides of Jerome Avenue, between the Grand Concourse, the main thoroughfare of the Bronx, and the begi

"Chiun," Remo said, "do you know what I'm looking for?"

"Not sure."

"Do you see what I see?" Remo asked. "No."

"What do you think?" "This is an outskirt of a larger city." "Notice anything different from one block to another?" "No. This is one place all over the place. Heh, heh." Chiun knew when he created a phrase in English and would punctuate it with a laugh that was not a laugh. "We'll see," Remo said.

Mei Soong piped up. "It is obvious that the middle level of your rulers lives here. Your secret police and army. Your nuclear bomber pilots."

"The lower proletariat," Remo said.

"A lie," she insisted. "I do not believe the masses live in buildings like these with street lights on corners and shops nearby under that train in the air."

Remo parked the car in front of a brown brick building with a tudor entrance and two rows of green hedges cut very thin, bordering the steps that led to the entrance. "Wait here," he told Mei Soong and motioned Chiun to follow.

"I'm pretty sure I know how General Liu disappeared," Remo whispered to Chiun as they walked away from the car.

"Who do you think you are, Charley Chan?" asked Chiun. "You are not trained in this sort of thing."

"Quiet," Remo said. "I want you to observe."

"Right on, Sherlock, heh, heh."

"Where'd you pick that up?"

"I watch television at Folcroft."

"Oh, I didn't know they had TV there."

"Yes," said Chiun. "My favorite shows are Edge of Night and As the World Turns. They are so beautiful and lovely."

On Jerome Avenue, it became clear to Chiun also. As they strolled through the busy shopping district, they drew curious glances from passersby, the fruit peddler, students with DeWitt Clinton High School jackets, a policeman collecting his weekly tithe from a bookie.

They stopped in front of a lot clustered with unmarked gravestones, and an incredibly ornate white marble angel, undoubtedly ordered by a family that had come to its senses too late after the first shock of loss.

The fresh smell of grass from the municipal golf course came as a blessed gift, telling them that grass was alive and well and living in some sections of New York City.

The afternoon heat, surprising for September, bore down heavily on the now gummy asphalt.

A train clattered overhead spraying metal sparks where its wheels met the tracks.

"Chiun, General Liu never left Jerome Avenue at this point. There were no reports on his being seen, but in this neighborhood there's no way that a couple of men, one of them an Oriental in uniform, could just walk away. He must have been plopped into another car a couple of blocks from here and taken somewhere."

Remo sca

"Maybe he forced his driver to turn off," Chiun said.

"No, he wouldn't have to. They were his own men. He's a general, you know."

"And you know as much about Chinese internal politics as a roach knows about nuclear engineering."

"I know a general's man is a general's man."

"Do you also know why a general in an armored car can shoot two of his own men, and then not fire a shot at somebody who forces him from the car?"

"Maybe it all happened too fast. Anyway, Chiun…" Remo stopped. "I've got it. That train overhead, you know where it goes? To Chinatown! That's it. They herded him on a train to Chinatown."

"Did no one notice the gang of men boarding the train? Did no one think it was odd to see a Chinese general struggling on a subway?"

Remo shrugged. "Just details."

"Everything seems clear to you because you do not know what you are doing, my son," said Chiun. "Perhaps General Liu is already dead."

"I don't think so. Why the big effort then to kill us?"

"A diversion."

Remo smiled. "Then they better up the price."

"They will," Chiun said. "Particularly now when the world learns that you are also a famous all-knowing detective."

"No more of your snot," Remo said. "You're just jealous because I figured it out and you couldn't. We're going to Chinatown. And find General Liu."

Chiun bowed from the waist. "As you desire, most worthy number one son."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

There was trouble in China. More rumors of Mao's death. Newsmen pontificating on the i

So the reasoning went in China. So the whispers were whispered. And so, in a nation, where important decisions were discovered only after they had been implemented, people began to move before peace happened.

Remo commented on this, in a taxicab on his way to Chinatown. He had left his rented car at the midtown hotel they had checked into and had hailed a cab.

He was sure the answer was in Chinatown. He was sure General Liu's disappearance had something to do with the China turmoil. But he was no longer so confident of finding him. A needle in a haystack and only four days left before the Chinese cancelled the Premier's trip.

Remo was sure the Premier should, for safety sake, come to America now, without arrangements. A sudden trip a

"Thank you, Mister Secretary of State," said Chiun.

"Do you think that the people of China will stand for one of their own beloved generals rotting in an American dungeon?" Mei Soong asked.

"The people in American prisons live better than you rice planters," commented Chiun to Mei Soong.

The cab driver knocked on the window. "This is it," he said.

Remo looked around. The streets were lit with merry lights and vendors sold pizza and hot sausages and little Italian pastries.

"This is Chinatown?" Remo asked.

"San Ge

Remo shrugged and paid the driver what seemed to be an excessive fare. He said nothing but he was disgusted. How was he going to find anyone-or be found-in this horde of Italians?

Now he pressed his way grimly down the middle of the street, squinting to close out the brightness of the overhead strings of lights. Mei Soong followed him, tossing insults back over her shoulder at Chiun, who shouted back at her. Their noise was deafening to Remo, not that anyone should have noticed. Hastily-erected plywood booths cluttering the already narrow streets drew crowds of Italians and the Oriental obscenities Chiun and Mei Soong shouted at each other sounded, in the din, only like warm greetings being exchanged by long-lost cousins from Castellamare.

None should have noticed the two shouting Orientals, but someone had. A young Chinese man, with long shiny hair, was ahead of them, leaning on the pole holding up the awning of an Italian zeppole booth, openly staring at them. He wore an olive drab Army-type jacket with a red star on each shoulder and a Mao-style fatigue hat, from under which hung a mass of long, sleek hair.

It was the third time they had passed him in the two-block festival stretch of Pell Street. He waited until all three had passed him and then Remo heard him shout. "Wah Ching."