He was unable to break the skin of the tomato and finally leaned on the Vega-Choppa with both hands, creating a popping mush, and getting a gouge in his thumb and forefinger that needed five stitches to close.
Chiun was proud but sad. Remo had used his skills well, but in a wrong cause, and if the rest of
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Remo's life was to be spent demonstrating tools that no one could use, then Chiun would have to think seriously of finding another student to build into a new Master of Sinanju.
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CHAPTER FIVE
She saw the hands. She saw them on the TV screen and she knew it was him. She stopped yelling at workmen repairing the glass in the front of her wig factory and shop, the finest wig shop in Norfolk, Virginia-unless of course you wanted something in a cheaper line, like rayon, which was not only blonder but could wash better and wear longer. And when you got tired of looking like a giant yellow mum, it made the best mattress stuffing this side of down. The Gonzalez Wig Emporium also sold down, imitation down, stuffing, life insurance, and Jesus bracelets that fought gout.
She stopped yelling and she looked.
"Remo," she said.
"What ?" said one of the workmen.
"Keep sweepin', nigger," said Ruby Gonzalez who was just a partial shade lighter than the brown workman. She knew she wasn't beautiful but she had an attractive presence that would not quit; when she set her eyes on a man, she could make him hers.
And maybe that was what was needed now, because she had just seen the hands of a man who could do miracles. Who might be able to get Lu-
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cius back-Lucius, who had been dragged screaming out of the shop, screaming, until the attackers could get a needle into him. No one knew who had seized the fourteen missing men and still a week later no one knew where they were. Although Ruby had her suspicions. But what good were suspicions when you didn't have the muscle?
And special muscle she needed. Some dummy with a gun would not do. She had seen them. If they got the guy you wanted, they more than likely shot up half a town. Norfolk was a quiet town. She got along in Norfolk. She had friends in Norfolk. Ruby didn't want to shoot up the town to get her brother back. With the help of those hands on television she might be able to.
Remo. She had never been able to find him again.
It was at a time she was working for the government, when because of her black blood and Spanish surname and female gender she had become an entire equal opportunity program in the hands of the CIA. She meant that they didn't have to hire quite as many blacks, women, or Spanish surnames. Which was not all that bright, Ruby knew, because she was the only one in her department who didn't make a botch of things.
For a woman of twenty-three, she was wise in the ways of the world. She was not afraid her country was going to be devastated by some great sinister foreign intelligence agency. She understood very well that most white men were stupid. As were black men. And yellow men. And that included the white man and the yellow man she had met on assignment in Baqia, one of those stupid
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places nobody wanted until somebody else was about to get it.
She had never been able to find a trace of them again. Remo's fingerprints were not on file anywhere her friends could get to. It was like he and Chiun had vanished, but here she saw those hands on TV, just when she needed them most.
"Mama, Mama," she yelled, running to the small apartment above the shop. Mama liked living here. Ruby lived in a mansion out of town. She had offered her mother several rooms in the Gonzalez mansion in Princess Anne County, but her mother wanted to stay with her old friends in Norfolk. Mama also liked to eat. Mama was not allowed to eat in the mansion. Ruby had it up for resale and she didn't want crumbs on the floor.
"Mama, Mama," cried Ruby. "I think we can save Lucius."
Mama sat in a blue painted rocking chair smoking a pipe. Mama smoked chicory, corn silk, and dried maple leaf ground together. Some said this combination caused neither bronchitis nor cancer nor any other disease, because it acted not so much like a carcinogen as a razor. It would lacerate your throat before it would pollute it.
Most people passed out from sniffing it. Ruby had grown up with it.
"They gonna save Lucius?" asked Mama, her tired face a rich deep black, the wrinkles warm with many a weary year of going on from day to day.
"No. We're gonna save him," Ruby said.
The old woman thought about this a long moment. She took a deep puff on her corncob pipe.
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"Chile?" she said.
"Yes, Mama," said Ruby.
"What yo' want to do that for? He de most useless chile in this Lord's creation."
"He's my brother, Mama."
"I'm sorry about that, chile, but sometimes I think maybe dey made a mistake at de hospital, ceppin' I didn' go to no hospital. Maybe we made a mistake on de kitchen table."
"Mama, that's Lucius we're talking about. He may be hurt."
"Only if he working. That boy only hurt when he work. Sometime ah think maybe we get him mixed up with a loaf of bread or something that day on de kitchen table but then ah remembers we only eats white bread. And sometimes ah try to pictorialize zactly in my mind what we throw away in de kitchen that day. Was it de afterbirth or Lucius that got dumped wif de garbage? Ah use to think we kept de afterbirth, but afterbirth don' eat, doit?"
"No, Mama."
"Then that's Lucius. De eatenest baby ah ever see."
"Mama, he's been kidnapped."
"Ah know. His bed be empty from nine in the morning to five at night, Monday until Friday, all this week. Ah know something be wrong."
"I'm going to get him back," Ruby said. "And I know how. There are two men who can do miracles, Mama, and I've just seen their hands on television. I'm going to get him back. Lucius is a good boy."
"Lucius de most useless chile in dis here country. He don't even pick up welfare checks.
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When de mail was late dat week, he call de mayor, saying dems oppressin' him. Dat boy never did a lick of work in his life. Boy even gave up muggin' 'cause people stopped walkin' down dat alley behind de shop. He say he am' traveling to work no ways."
An ordinary executive might have been turned off in her search for the owner of the hands. But Kuby Gonzalez, owner of Wig Emporium, Wig City, a wig factory, two real estate agencies, a mail order house, and director of four banks, was not about to be put off by some clerk just because he had the title of vice president for marketing.
"Madam, let me assure you we used only a regular announcer for that commercial, an announcer who has been doing these things for years. We did not import specialized skills for the easy operation of the miracle Vega-Choppa, the bestselling kitchen appliance since the pot. Heh, heh."
"Turkey, I know those hands. Now you going to help me or not help me ?"
"We have been one of the leading ad agencies in America since our inception in Philadelphia in 1873. We do not engage in fraud."
Within forty minutes, Ruby had a history of the ad agency showing it had begun with a flyer claiming Dr. Magic's Wonder Grease cured brain tumors, and in 1943 had been indicted for claiming cigarette smoking promoted sexual vitality, clear skin, and long life.
When they met again, the vice president for marketing admitted to Ruby that the hands she saw were represented by a major talent agency
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that handled actors and writers. The hands had been given to a young agent because no one knew what to do with hands. The agent generally represented marginal writers. By marginal, the agency meant that if one of their agents had to do more than pick up a telephone to get a half million-dollar advance on a book, the writer of the book was marginal.