Chinese Puzzle

"Wah Ching."

The cry echoed down the street, then was picked up by more voices, and shouted back. "Wah Ching. Wah Ching. Wah Ching."

Remo slowed Ms pace and Mei Soong stalked roughly ahead, as Chiun came up alongside him.

"What does that mean?" Remo asked.

"What?"

"Whatever they're yelling."

"They shout Wah Ching. It means China Youth," Chiun said.

They had walked through the festival area and the street ahead of them turned abruptly dark. And then Remo saw step out of an alley 40 yards ahead of them, four more young men. They wore the same costume as the man who had been trailing them, red-starred field jackets and fatigue caps.

They began to walk toward Remo, Chiun and Mei Soong, and Remo could sense the first youth drawing up on them from behind.

He took Mei Soong by the arm, and quickly but smoothly steered her around a corner into a narrow sidestreet. The street was brightly lighted but silent. Only the hum of airconditioners on the buff-colored three-story brick buildings that bordered the narrow street broke the silence, and the buildings served as a wall to seal out the shouting of the Italian hordes only a block away.

It had gone better than Remo had hoped. Perhaps they were going to find the fortune cookie among all that fettucini. But he had to keep the girl out of danger.

They stepped up onto the sidewalk and followed the twisting street, around the curve, when Remo drew up short. The street ended 100 feet ahead, passing through an unlit alley into the Bowery. Behind them, he heard footsteps approaching.

He pulled Mei Soong up short. "Come on," he said, "we're going to eat."

"Do you or the ru

"We'll bill it to the People's Rupublic."

The girl had still noticed nothing. She was used to being pulled around by Remo. Chiun, of course, would telegraph nothing, and Remo hoped that he had not, himself, given away their awareness that they were being followed.

As they walked casually, up the stairs to the Imperial Garden restaurant, Remo said to the girl: "When the revolution comes and your gang takes over, pass a law putting all your restaurants at street level. Around here, you're always walking up a flight or down a flight. It's like a city under a city."

"The exercise is good for the digestion," she said. Chiun snorted, but said nothing.

The restaurant was empty, and the waiter was sitting in the back at a booth in the back, going over the racing form. Without waiting, Remo walked to a booth midway down the row on the left side. He slid Mei Soong into a seat, then motioned Chiun in alongside her. He squeezed in on the opposite side of the gray formica table. By turning his body sideways, he could watch both the front door and the doors leading to the kitchen in the rear of the restaurant.

Chiun was smiling.

"What's so fu

"A rare treat. A Chinese restaurant. Have you ever been starved to death in seven courses? But of course a people with no honor have no real need of sustenance."

Mei Soong's answer was cut short by the appearance of the waiter, at their side.

"Good evening," he said in precise English. "We have no liquor."

"That's all right," Remo said. "We've come to eat." "Very good, sir," he said, nodding to Remo. He nodded also to Mei Soong, and turned his head slightly to acknowledge CMun. Remo could see Chiun's eyes look up into the waiter's face, evaporating the smile that was there. The waiter turned back to Mei Soong and exploded in a babble of Chinese.

Mei Soong answered him softly. The waiter babbled something, but before Mei Soong could answer, Chiun interrupted their melodic dialogue. In a parody of their Chinese sing-song, he spoke to the waiter, whose face flushed, and he turned and walked rapidly to the kitchen in the rear.

Remo watched him push through the swinging doors, then turned to Chiun who was chuckling under his breath, wearing a smirk of self-satisfaction.

"What was that all about?" Remo asked.

Chiun said, "He asked this trollop what she was doing with a pig of a Korean."

"What did she say?"

"She said we were forcing her into a life of prostitution."

"What did he say?"

"He offered to call the police."

"What did you say?"

"Only the truth." -

"Which is?"

"That no Chinese woman has to be forced into a life of prostitution. It comes naturally to them. Like stealing toilet paper. I told him too we would eat only vegetables, and he could return the dead cats to the icebox and sell them for pork tomorrow night. That seemed to upset him and he left. Some people ca

"Well, I'm just glad you handled it so pleasantly."

Chiun nodded an acknowledgement and folded his hands in front of him in an attitude of prayer, serene in the knowledge that no untrue or unkind word had passed his lips.

Remo watched the front door over Mei Soong's shoulder as he spoke to her. "Now remember. Keep your eyes open for any signal, anything that looks suspicious. If we're right, the people who have the general are around here somewhere, and they might like to add you to their collection. It gives us a chance of finding him. Maybe just a small chance. But a chance."

"Chairman Mao. He who does not look will not find."

"I was brought up believing that," Remo said.

She smiled, a small warm smile. "You must be careful, capitalist. The seeds of revolution may lie in you ready to sprout forth."

She reached forward with her leg, and touched her knee to Remo's under the table. He could feel her trembling. Since the hotel room in Boston, she had studiedly spent her time, signaling Remo with touches and rubbing. But Remo had reacted coldly to them. She had to be kept close and obedient, and the best way was to keep her waiting.

By the flicker of distaste in Chiun's eyes, Remo could tell the waiter was returning. Remo watched him in a mirror over the entrance way, walking angrily back down the floor toward them, three di

He stopped alongside the table, and placed one in front of Remo. "For you, sir."

He placed the second in front of Mei Soong. "And for the lovely lady."

He dropped the third one on the table in front of Chiun, and it splashed small drops on the table top.

"If we were to return in one year," Chiun said, "these drippings would still be here. Chinese, you know, never wash tables. They wait for earthquake or flood to jar dirt loose. It is the same with their bodies."

The waiter walked away, back toward the kitchen.

Mei Soong squeezed Remo's leg between both of hers under the table. As women always do in such situations.to disclaim ownership of the brazen legs, she began to chatter incongruously.

"It looks good," she said. "I wonder if it is Cantonese or Mandarin."

Chiun sniffed the plate containing the usual jellied mass of colorless vegetables. "Mandarin," he said, "because it smells like dog. Cantonese smells like bird droppings."

"A people who would eat raw fish should not cavil at civilization," she said, spooning vegetables into her mouth.

"Is it civilized to eat birds' nests?"

They were on again. But Remo paid no attention to them. In the overhead mirror, he could see back through the round door windows into the kitchen where the waiter stood, talking to the young man who had spotted them on the street. The man was gesturing, and as Remo watched, he snapped his fatigue cap off his head and slapped it across the waiter's face.

The waiter nodded and almost ran back through the swinging doors. As he passed their table, he mumbled under his breath.

"What did he say?" Remo asked Chiun. Chiun was still playing with his spoon in the vegetables. "He called me pig."

As Remo watched, the waiter picked up the phone in front and dialed. Just three digits. A long one and two shorts. It was the emergency number of the New York City police.