"Tell us what happened," Chiun said. Again, his interest triggered Remo's suspicions.
Fabienne downed the rest of her drink. A lone tear trickled down her cheek. "Oh, I'm so sorry you had to be involved. Both of you."
"Perhaps we are involved more than you think," Chiun said. "Tell us what you can. Without tears, please."
"He came for me after Remo left," she said. "I was asleep. He got on top of me and tried to strangle me." She touched the bruises on her neck with a wince of pain. "There was nothing near my bed except for a candle, but it was all I had. I got hold of it somehow and poked him in the eye, I think. He jumped, and I managed to squirm away. It was horrible." She slapped both hands over her eyes, as though trying to erase the memory.
"Go on," Remo said gently.
"I got out of the house and ran down the back roads to the shore. He followed me. He was very close. He would have got me for certain if the clouds hadn't come in so quickly. When the moon disappeared, it became dark very suddenly. I backtracked toward the woods, and I heard him stop behind me. I think he became confused when he couldn't see me. So I crouched down behind a rock and listened. He was moving slowly, listening for me, too. Then I saw some stones nearby. I picked up a few of them and threw them into the woods. He followed them, merci à Dieu."
"And you came here."
"Not directly. He would have heard me. Instead, I crawled as quietly as I could back to the beach and got in the water. It was totally dark by then. I don't think he saw me, but I went out as far as I dared, just to be sure. Sharks come to these waters at night. I was frightened that one would come after me, but I couldn't risk getting back onto land. I knew he would be looking for me there, waiting. I swam to about a kilometer from here, and ran the rest of the way."
Remo made a face. "What I can't figure out is, why would this person— whoever he is— want to kill you?"
She looked at him, her mouth turned downward in bitter irony. "Oh, didn't I tell you? I know who he is. The mute. The Dutchman's servant."
Remo and Chiun exchanged a glance. "Perhaps you would like to rest," Chiun said. "We have time for these matters tomorrow."
She nodded. "I suppose you're right. Thank you."
Remo led her to his bedroom. He came back in a few minutes to find Chiun lost in thought in front of the broken window.
"I'll be right back," Remo said. "I still have to get rid of one of the guys you sent to Happy Land."
"Take me to the body," Chiun said.
Near the shore, Remo picked up the man in corduroys by the armpits. "I've been taking them over to that cliff and tossing them in," he said, nodding toward the darkness. "The water's pretty deep there—"
"Break his arm," Chiun said.
"What?"
"Break his arm. The forearm."
Remo dropped the body with a sigh. "Now, isn't this going a little far? I mean, maybe they did break your T.V., but the poor sucker's already dead..."
"Arguments, always arguments," Chiun snapped. "Is it always so difficult for you to fulfill the simplest request? Do you find it so impossible..."
The arm broke with a snap.
"Ah," Chiun said. "A little respect, at last." He picked up the dead man's arm and examined the break with his fingers. "Is this your best attack?" he asked crisply.
Remo rolled his eyes. "Want me to go down to the morgue and practice?"
"Break the other arm."
"Aw, come on."
"Do as I say."
Remo picked up the other arm reluctantly. "I feel like a ghoul."
Chiun glared at him, the hazel eyes glinting threateningly in the darkness.
He broke the second arm with a quick chop. Chiun fluttered over to feel the break. Amid a series of muttered "hmmms" and "ahs," he bounced from one side of the body to the other, scrutinizing the new breaks. "Just as I thought," he declared finally. He dismissed Remo with a wave of his hand. "You may dispose of this carrion now."
"Wait just a freaking minute. Now that I've broken both arms of a corpse, would you mind telling me what is just as you thought?"
Chiun sputtered. "I'm sorry, Remo. I try but you just have no brains. Any idiot could see why I asked you to break his arms."
"Not any idiot," Remo said hotly.
"To see if your elbow was bent," Chiun shrieked.
Remo stepped back, dumbstruck. Chiun turned gracefully back toward the villa.
"Was it?" Remo asked so softly, he could barely hear it himself.
Chiun cackled from afar. "Yes, of course. Your elbow is always bent." He hooted with delight. He was going to sleep well tonight, very well indeed. He had the proof he needed now. Emperor Smith was a white fool to think that Remo could have killed the men in the photographs he carried. Now Chiun could confirm Remo's innocence. Smith could compare the results of Remo's attack and see that they were different from those in the picture. The man who slew those unfortunates in the sunken truck did not bend his elbow when he worked. He did not make small mistakes. Only big ones.
His biggest was to forward a letter that should have remained locked in the tomb of the past.
In his room, Chiun rolled out his tatami sleeping mat and prepared for deep rest. He would need it, for tomorrow he would do battle with a ghost.
A ghost more deadly and evil than any man.
?Seven
Mrs. Hank Cobb gave her husband's arm a squeeze as they strolled in the brisk morning air on the second-class deck of the Coppelia. On the island a half-mile away, graceful palms waved good-bye while the ship's mighty foghorn sounded. As usual when leaving port, Mrs. Cobb cried.
"There, there," her husband said, patting her hand paternally, even though his lips betrayed a smile of pleasure and pride. "Not a bad second honeymoon, wouldn't you say, Emily?"
Emily Cobb gently kissed the white-haired, stoop-shouldered man at her side. "Second? I didn't know the first one was over," she said, causing the man she had lived with for twenty-five years to blush like a schoolboy. Together they stood on deck, waving back to the silent palms, their new Sony Trinitron and Swedish Valpox stereo safely crated below.
Near the ship, something bobbed momentarily to the surface before being engulfed again by the waves. "What's that?" Mrs. Cobb asked, pointing to the object.
"A log, I think, or a broken telephone pole," Mr. Cobb answered thoughtfully. "Then again, it couldn't be a telephone pole. I haven't seen any of those here. Come to think of it, I haven't seen any trees that big around in the whole darned Caribbean, have you?"
Mrs. Cobb felt an uneasy wobbling in her stomach. "It... it doesn't really look like a tree," she said hesitantly.
"Well, then maybe it's something off the ship."
The object came to the surface again, dark and shining in the bright reflection of the sun on the ocean.
"Hank... Hank," she cried low, her fingers clutching her husband's coat in a terrified grip. Mr. Cobb struggled with her while he peered over his glasses at the thing floating on the surface of the water, the dun-colored item where his wife's attention was so desperately riveted.
"Damn bifocals," he muttered. "Emily, for God's sake, what's the matter?" He turned to her quickly. "You feel all right, don't you, dear?"
And Mrs. Cobb opened her mouth automatically to assure Mr. Cobb that she was feeling just fine, but at that moment the thing drifted alongside the ship and opened its eyes in its charred skull. Its teeth flashed white, as though belonging to a corpse that had risen from some dank and ancient grave, and its blood trailed behind it in a ribbon. And Emily Cobb shattered the silence on deck with the most horrifying sound she had ever uttered.
She screamed, rooted to the spot where she stood, as the cruise director turned smiling toward her. She screamed as his smile disintegrated into a hideous grimace and he called for help on his walkie-talkie. She screamed as a tangle of crewmen flooded around her with ropes and a lifeboat and went scurrying down the ladder to sea level. And she screamed when the ship's surgeon appeared, bleary and frantic, to check her pulse and command her husband in boozy tones to take her to their cabin as the crewmen shouted and heaved their blackened cargo into the lifeboat below.