"It's better in English," Remo said.
Jean Baptiste Malaise grunted.
"Listen, Mr. Malaise, I've come to kill you and all your brothers."
"I'm not buying anything," said Malaise.
"No. I said kill."
"Wait until the commercial."
"I don't really have much time."
"All right. What? What do you want?" said Malaise, his black eyes burning with anger. This was his favorite television show.
"I have come," said Remo, very slowly and very clearly, "to kill you and your sixteen brothers."
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"Why is that?"
"Because we cannot have another armed force on the island."
"Who is this we?"
"It's a secret organization. I can't tell you about it."
"What secret organization?"
"I said I can't talk about it," Remo said.
"It's a game."
"Not a game. You and your brothers are going to be dead by morning."
"Do I sign something? When do I get the prize?" asked Malaise.
"I have come here to kill you and your brothers and you will all be dead before tomorrow noon," said Remo.
"All right. What for?" said Jean Malaise. The commercial was on now and he didn't like commercials.
"Because you murder people on their boats and smuggle drugs into America with those boats."
"So why kill me? We've always done that. Are we cutting into your market?"
"Listen," said Remo, feeling a rare sense of anger. "I am not here because I am a competitor. I am here because you are going to die. Tonight. And your sixteen brothers."
"Shhhh, the commercial's over."
"Mrs. Malaise," said Remo. "Would you please call all the brothers here? I want to see them tonight."
"They were here last night," said Mrs. Malaise.
"Just call them and tell them to bring weapons if they want."
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"They always carry weapons."
"Call them," Remo said.
"They are really going to kill you," said the woman.
"Call," said Remo and then to Jean Malaise, "What's happening? I don't understand French."
"This detective, Mr. Columbo, who is French on his mother's side, is outsmarting the British."
"I think they've changed the story line in translation," Remo said. "You wouldn't happen to know what a fuesal is?"
"That again?" said Malaise.
"It goes on a boat and is about eight inches long and has ball bearings and does something with the fuel mixture or something."
"No," said Malaise, still absorbed by the picture.
"You doing a good business?" Remo asked.
"It's a living," the man said.
"So far," said Remo.
It took the brothers less than 20 minutes to assemble in the living room. Remo could not remember their names. He waited until Columbo was over and then spoke to all of them.
"Quiet. Will you please? Quiet. Quiet. Shhh. Will you listen? I've come here to kill you. Now we can do it here, but I suggest outside because the floors here will get messy as hell."
"What is the game?" said one.
"There's no game," Remo said.
"Jean Baptiste says you are giving away something for a game show. We will be on American television."
"No, no. You will not be on American televi-
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sion. You are all going to die tonight because I am going to kill you. All right, is that clear?"
There was much confused talking in French and there were a few angry voices. They all looked to the oldest brother, Jean Baptiste Malaise.
"Okay, you sonofabitch, now you going to die. You come here interrupting Columbo and bringing no beer and then lying about us being on television. You will die. We've killed hundreds."
"Not in my living room," screamed Mrs. Malaise.
"Outside," said Malaise.
"Not in the peonies," said Mrs. Malaise.
Remo was the last one outside and Jean Baptiste tried a simple turn with a pistol. It was basically just hiding the pistol, then turning and firing straight ahead on the turn, but Remo caught the wrist before its fingers could fire and smoothly pushed the sternum up into the heart, stopping it. He caught three temples immediately, stopping the brains, and followed the others who had yet to turn around with six blows, rapid, using both hands, sending fragments of the occipital into the brain, three strokes, two hands, one, two, three, very rapidly like an automatic riveter. Two others were turning around with knives as he caught their skulls at the coronal sutures, splitting the casing of the brains and rupturing them.
One of the brothers had a submachine gun and was waiting to get a shot. He waited forever. He couldn't quite pull the trigger because his arm had been crushed at the elbow. He didn't even see the hand go through the suborbital notch of the skull. There was just darkness.
Another was squeezing off a shot from a .357
22
magnum with which he had personally taken 22 lives in desperate island coves. He could have sworn he was pointing the gun at the stranger but if that were so, why was he looking at the flash? He did not look long. The big shell exploded in his face.
Another had a length of chain with a heavy copper-pointed lead slug at the end that he cracked bottles with for practice and faces with for real. Somehow the stranger caught this deadly slug being whipped with centrifugal force with one delicate finger and just as delicately put it back into the face that had seen so many others die.
And then there were two, the last two pirates of St. Maarten.
One emptied the clip of a 9-mm pistol at the stranger. He could have sworn he was hitting the body but the body did not drop. It was dark that night with only a sliver of moonlight. It became much darker very quickly and forever.
And then there was one. He had intended to finish off whatever there was to finish off, but no one ever left him with much in the way of combat. It had been his job to kill the children left over on boats stranded in the Caribbean and he liked the work because he was the crudest.
"Leave something for me," he called, turning around, and then he saw that it was all left for him. "Oh," he said.
"Yes," said the stranger.
So the last Malaise looked at his sixteen dead brothers and knew it was up to him. Well, he was the most cunning Malaise. He was the one who had trained his body to perfection. He was the Malaise who held not only the black belt in karate
23
but the famed red belt. He had blended karate with taekwondo.
He had never needed weapons.
He went into his battle position and assumed the posture of the cobra, hissing the power into every sinew of his body.
The stranger chuckled. "What's that?"
"Find out."
"Don't have time for the play stuff," the American said.
The last Malaise saw the stranger's skull and prepared the blow that could not even be seen by human eyes, such was its speed. It came from the very bottom of his feet and went out at the stranger's frontal lobe, driving, striking . . . unfortunately, without much power because the body was not behind it. The body was not behind it because the arm was going forward and the body was going backward, and the last Malaise was dead.
"Leave them there," said Mrs. Malaise.
"I was going to clean them up," Remo said.
"Don't bother. We're going to have funerals so the undertaker can do it. Have you eaten?"
"Yeah. I'm not hungry. I've got to find a place here and do something else by noon tomorrow."
"You're kind of cute. Spend the night. You don't want to go walking around the island at night."
"I've got to."
"Part of the quiz game?" the woman asked.
"Sure," lied Remo.
"What do I get for telling you what a fuesal is?"
"Nothing," Remo said.
"It's a form of Balinese makeup."
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"Wrong," said Remo. "It's got something to do with boats."