Chinese Puzzle

And so for the second time, Sweet Shiv saw the face, the high cheekbones, the deep brown eyes, the thin lips. The first time had been when he stood on a corner he had been told to stand on at a certain time, and the man had come out of the shop where Derellios' body was found later and had said simply: "You can go now."

He was now going to see that face again, and this tune Sweet Shiv was supposed to put a bullet in it. And Sweet Shiv knew as he turned south into Manhattan on the East River Drive that he was going to be wasted.

Somewhere a machine he had been part of was coming apart. And that machine belonged to the man. And the man had decided that one of its little black wheels was now going to be a piston. And if you lose a little black wheel trying to be a piston, well, what the hell, what's one Nigger more or less?

Sweet Shiv turned right on 14th Street, then made a U turn in the middle of the block, got back on the East Side Highway and headed north.

He had $800 in his pocket. He would not stop at his home to pick up his cash, he would not even bother to seal his car when he reached Rochester. He would leave nothing by which anyone could trace him.

Let them have the money. Let.some stranger take the car. Let them have everything. He was going to live.

"Baby," he said to himself, "they really had you going."

He felt somewhat happy that he was going to live another day. He felt this way until just before the Major Deegan Highway leading to the New York Thruway and upstate. A black family was sitting by their stalled 1957 Chevrolet, a paintworn, chipped, banged-up leftover of a car which had apparently surrendered its ghost for the last time. But Jackson figured he could make it run again.

He pulled it over, the wide soft wheels with their magnificent springs and shocks, taking the curb like a twig. He stopped on the grass which rose to a fence which separated the Bronx from the Major Deegan a few miles south of Yankee Stadium, the Black and Puerto Rican Bronx with dying buildings teeming with life.

He opened the door and got out into the stale smelling air and looked at the family. Four youngsters had been playing with a can, four youngsters in clothes so casual they looked as if they had been rejected by the Salvation Army. These four youngsters, one of whom might have been Sweet Shiv Jackson 15 years before, stopped playing to look at him.

The father sat by the front left fender, his back to the flat bald tire, his face cemented in resignation. A woman, old as flesh and weary as millstones, snored in the front seat.

"How you doin', brother?"

"Fine," said the man looking up. "You got a tire that will fit?"

"I got a whole car that will fit."

"Who I got to kill?"

"Nobody."

"Sounds fine, but…"

"But what?"

"But I wouldn't make it to your wheels, man. You got company."

Sweet Shiv, maintaining his cool, slowly sca

Jackson's stomach dissolved into strings. His arms hung leaden as though enervated by electricity.

The man stared directly into his eyes and shook his head. All Bernoy (Sweet Shiv) Jackson could do was nod. "Yowsah," he said, and the man in the car smiled.

Jackson turned to the man on the grass and carefully peeled from a roll of bills in his pocket all but $20.

The man eyed him suspiciously.

"Take it," said Jackson.

The man did not move.

"You got more smarts than I got, brother. Take it. I won't need it. I'm a dead man."

Still no movement.

So Sweet Shiv Jackson dropped the money in the front seat of the remnant of a 1957 Chevrolet and returned to his Fleetwood which still had one payment on it outstanding. The life of Bernoy (Sweet Shiv) Jackson.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Remo Williams spotted the man with the.357 Magnum first. Then the man with the very big bulge in his Oscar de la Renta suit spotted Remo. Then the man smiled weakly.

Remo smiled too.

The man stood before the Bong Rhee karate school, a walkup entrance with a painted sign telling people to walk up one flight and that when they traversed the stairs they would be in one of the leading schools of self defense in the Western Hemisphere.

Remo said, "What's your name?"

"Bernoy Jackson."

"How do you want to die, Bernoy?"

"No way, man," said Bernoy honestly.

"Then tell me who sent you."

Bernoy recounted the story. His black boss. The numbers that hit. Then standing on the corner near where three men were killed. And the information.

"That corner. That's where I saw you."

"That's right," Remo said. "I probably should kill you now."

Sweet Shiv went for the gun. Remo snapped out his knuckles into the man's wrist. Jackson grimaced in pain and clutched his wrist. His pain brought sweat to Ms large forehead. "All I gotta say, honMe, is you a bunch of mean bastards. You the meanest, toughest bastards on this planet earf."

"I hope so," Remo said. "Now beat it."

Sweet Shiv turned and walked away and Remo watched him go, quietly sympathizing with the man who was obviously a CURE agent and did not know it. Remo had been framed. Bernoy Jackson had been bought. But they were brothers under the skin somehow, and so Jackson lived.

What hurt was that Remo had been marked for death. And now he could trust no one. But why had they sent that Jackson? CURE must be compromised beyond saving. Then why go through with the search for Liu? What else was there to do?

Remo went into the door of the karate school. He felt Chiun follow him up the creaky wood steps in the narrow stairway, boxed in by grease-coated, dust-catching green paint. A lightbulb at the top of the stairs illuminated a red painted arrow. The paint was fresh. Mei Soong followed Chiun.

"Oh.how wonderful it is to work with you, Remo," Chiun said.

"Drop dead."

"Not only are you a detective and secretary of state but now you are becoming socially aware. Why did you let that man walk away?"

"Swallow your spit."

"He recognized you. And you let him go."

"Suck cyanide."

Remo paused at the top of the stairs, Chiun and Mei Soong waiting behind him.

"Are you contemplating the stairwell or a new cause of social justice?" Chiun's face was serene.

It would be Chiun. Remo had always known it, but did not want to believe it. Who else could do it? Not that Jackson. Yet Chiun had not terminated him.

That Chiun had not been able to was out of the question. The thought momentarily arose in Remo's mind that Chiun might have refrained because of affection for Remo. The thought was as fleeting as it was absurd. If Remo had to go, Chiun would do it. Just another job.

Then it was the message that had failed. It had not reached Chiun. Remo thought of the phone call to Smith, and his insistence that Remo tell Chiun to return to Folcroft. Of course that was the signal-and Remo had not transmitted it.

The course for Remo now was clear. Just throw a shot to the frail yellow throat in the hallway, now while they were pressed together. Stun him. Kill him. And then run. And keep ru

That was his only hope.

Chiun looked up at him quizzically.

"Well," he said, "are we to reside here forever to become an element of the scenery?"

"No," said Remo with heaviness in his voice. "We're going inside.

"You will find it a most attractive and rewarding experience to witness the martial arts," Mei Soong said.

Chiun smiled. Mei Soong pushed past them and opened the door. Chiun and Remo followed, into the large low-ceilinged white room with sunlight coming in over the backs of large pictures in the front windows of what had once been a loft. Off to the right were the usual paraphernalia of karate schools, sandbags, and roofing tiles, and a large box filled with beans, used for toughening the fingertips.