"I was just wondering what Americans found attractive. I must tell this to Sinanju when we return. That is Smith's promise, and you cannot break the promise of an emperor."
"You never told me that. You always told me that what an emperor did not know about you was always in your best interest."
"Unless," said Chiun, "it is a decree. Smith has decreed that we will go to Sinanju."
"We're going to board the sub by tomorrow morning. I promise. I just want to clear up a couple of things. Before we go to Patna, I'd like to find out if I can settle this thing right here in the states."
"And what if it takes days and weeks?" asked Chiun. "I go without my luggage, without my special set that makes pictures. I go like a wanderer."
"Your fourteen steamer trunks and your television set are on board the sub."
"Aha, but until we are aboard the submarine, I am without those necessities that make life less burdensome for a weary man who longs for his home. It has been many years."
"Since when are you weary?"
"It is always tiring attempting to enlighten the invincibly ignorant. Do not be proud of your triumph."
A coughing roar of motorcycles intruded down the street and a phalanx of black cyclists with skulls painted on their silver jackets turned the corner of Lorky and drove imperiously in front of Remo and Chiun. Ordinarily, this would have been a simple brushback with an old man straggling to jump for his life and the younger man tripping over his own feet. The Black Skulls could do this well. They called it "slicing Whitey," and a week did not go by without one of the group getting his bones, which really meant encouraging some white to jump in such a way that he broke an arm or a leg in the fall. You could always get your bones with the older whites because they were more brittle than the younger ones.
The Black Skulls were getting many bones this summer because of a new policy of police community relations under which, instead of arresting the cyclists for assault, they were called in to discuss white racism and how the San Diego Police Department could overcome it. Invariably, the prescription was, "Stop hassling us, man."
Thus, unhassled by police, the Black Skulls made many bones that summer, although not in Italian neighborhoods whose unenlightened racial policies led the Black Skulls to a unanimous decision that "You don't mess with the guineas." Sometimes, the Black Skulls would work on black but only when the day had been unfruitful of white victims.
This day, the last cyclist looked back to see if he got both the old man with the beard and the funny yellow robe, and the white dude with the gray slacks and blue turtleneck sweater. They seemed unbothered, so Willie "Sweetman" Johnson and Muhammid Crenshaw signaled the pack to wheel around and make another pass.
This time Willie "Sweetman" Johnson, who had been called a failure of the San Diego school system—his last teacher had failed to teach him to read, possibly because she was being raped at the time by Sweetman himself and the alphabet came unclear through her bloody and battered lips—this time, Sweetman chose a closer path. Like right through the hips of the younger honkey. And he missed. The honkey was there in front of the built-up chrome bar on top of the front wheel guard, and then the honkey was not there.
"You see that boy move?" asked Sweetman, whirling around at the other end of the street.
"Ah hits da yella one," said Muhammid Crenshaw. "But he still dere."
"This time they go," yelled Sweetman.
"For the love of Allah," yelled Muhammid Crenshaw.
"Yeah, for motherfuckin' Allah," yelled Sweetman, and the four cyclists closed on the two figures.
Remo saw the cyclists wheel for a return run.
"I'll tell you the truth, Little Father. I want to see Sinanju too. I know I'm the best pupil you ever had, and I want to see the young men of Sinanju."
"You have become adequate because I have been willing to spend extra time with you," said Chiun.
"Doesn't matter," Remo said. "I'm still the best you've had. Me. Whitey. Paleface. Me."
And with a simple backhand snap, Remo took the first rider off his cycle and held him. Chiun was a bit more efficient. He let his cyclist continue with a minor alteration in the plastic shield over his face mask. There was a small hole in it the width of a forefinger. There was also a small hole in the forehead behind the mask. It oozed red as the driver, not caring anymore, zoomed complacently into a fire hydrant, where he became separated from his machine and sailed off into a pile of rotting garbage, with which he blended very well.
Remo's rider kicked and screamed. Remo held him by the neck. Sweetman tried to reach the rod in his jacket pocket. Unfortunately, Sweetman was now unqualified for holding a gun. His right arm ended in a bloody wrist.
The other two riders, assuming Muhammid Crenshaw, now lying with the rest of the garbage, had hit a bump and missteered, and not sure whether Sweetman had gotten off his wheels to deal personally with the honkey or had been yanked off, wheeled back at the two in the middle of the street.
Remo slipped down to Sweetman's ankles, where, grabbing both, he swung the flailing leather-jacketed man in a nice, smooth horizontal path that caught the brace of oncoming cyclists full face. Chiun refused to move or even recognize Remo. He wanted no part of a person who had such arrogance as to believe he was a good pupil.
Sweetman took the other cyclists off their wheels with a nice crack.
"Home run," said Remo, but Chiun refused to look. Sweetman's helmet went skittering across the gutter. One cyclist lay flattened, the other rose groggily to his knees. One cycle dizzily circled the street and ended in an abandoned doorway. The other tumbled and stopped nearby, its gas tank spilling fumes and dark liquid in the gutter. Remo saw his human bat had a wild Afro, a cone twice the size of the helmet.
"Hi," said Remo, looking down at the Afro. "My name is Remo. What's yours?"
"Mufu," said Sweetman.
"Mufu, who sent you?"
"No one send me, man. Get yo mufu hands off'n me. Ah rack yo ass."
"Let's play school," said Remo. "I ask you a question, and you give me a positive answer with a sweet cheerful smile. All righty?"
"Mufu."
Remo walked the cyclist upside down to the spilling gas tank, where he dipped the Afro into the liquid, sloshing the head around. Then he walked his charge back to the cyclist getting to his feet.
"Got a light?" said Remo.
He saw a switchblade knife come out of the jacket and with his toe lacked it away.
"Three points," said Remo, who was in a scoring mood. "Field goal." And with the same foot coming back on its heel, he shattered an ear drum. "That's for not listening," said Remo. "I want a light."
"Don't give da man no match. My fro's been gaso-lined."
"Fu yu mufu," said the cyclist with the bleeding ear.
"You talking to me?" said Remo.
"No, to de nigger, Sweetman," said the cyclist, and he struck a match.
Remo lifted Sweetman higher. The hair caught like a torch, burning up to the eyebrows.
"Who sent you?" asked Remo.
"A as in apple, B as in boy, C as in cat," cried Sweetman.
"What's he talking about?" asked Remo.
"School. He learning de alphabet to get his degree from de teacher's college. He din wan take no easy course like Afro studies. You don't have to count fo that. Or spell or know de alphabet."
"Arghhh," cried Sweetman as his brain stopped working. Which was just as well. He had never gotten past F as in fly, even in his senior year in high school.