"Can I peek?" Remo asked.
"Definitely a fagola," Myron said.
Remo lifted the handkerchief's corner and peeked inside.
"How sweet of you. It's a fly. Chiun, it's a fly. I never got a fly before."
"You got one now," Anselmo said.
"Anything else you need from us?" Remo asked.
"No. That was it."
"Good," Chiun said. "Then remove your big hulks from this room so I may continue my work."
"Hey, who pulled his chain?" Anselmo said.
"He's writing a poem," Remo explained. "He doesn't like to be disturbed."
"He doesn't, huh? Well, let's see how he likes this." Anselmo stomped across the room, then planted a huge foot atop Chiun's parchment scroll and flattened it, leaving a tread mark.
"You've made him mad now," Remo said. He mumbled to Chiun in Korean.
"Hey. What'd you say to him?" Anselmo asked.
"I asked him not to kill you yet."
"Hahahahaha," Anselmo chuckled. "That's a rich one. Why not yet?"
"Because I want to ask you some questions first," Remo said.
"Oh, no," Myron interrupted. "No questions."
"You mean you were just told to deliver the fly and then leave?" Remo asked.
"That's right," Anselmo said.
"Don't go telling him stuff like that," Myron said. "It ain't none of his business."
"You weren't told to kill us?" Remo said. "Perriweather didn't tell you to kill us?"
"No. Just deliver the fly," Anselmo said.
"Boy, are you stupid," Myron said. "He was just guessing that it was Perriweather and now you told him it was."
"You're pretty smart for a dumbbell," Remo told Myron. "You've got real promise. Where's Perriweather now?"
"My lips are sealed," Myron said.
"How about you?" Remo said, turning to Anselmo. Before Anselmo could answer, Chiun said, "Remo, I wish you would conduct this conversation somewhere else. However, for disturbing my scroll, the ugly one belongs to me."
"Ugly one? Ugly one?" Anselmo shouted. "Is he talking about me?" he demanded of Remo.
Remo looked at Myron, then glanced at himself in a mirror. " 'Ugly one' sure sounds like you," he said.
"I'll deal with you next," Anselmo said. He stomped over to Chiun, who seemed to rise from the floor like a puff of smoke from a dying fire.
"You gotta learn, old man, not to go insulting people."
"Your face insults people," Chiun said.
Anselmo growled, drew back a big fist, and cocked it menacingly.
"Hey, Anselmo. Leave the old guy alone," Myron said.
"Good move, Myron," Remo said.
"Screw him," said Anselmo. He started the fist forward toward Chiun's frail delicate face. It never reached the target.
First Anselmo felt himself being lifted silently upward. If he didn't know better, he would have sworn the old gook was lifting him, but he had no time to think about that, because as he descended he felt something ram into his kidneys, turning them into jelly. He wanted to howl, but something that felt like a cinder block severed his windpipe in one swat. Anselmo tried to gasp for air, as he realized that his bones were somehow being mashed. His eyes were still open and he saw his trousers being tied into a knot, and with numb shock he realized that his legs were still inside them. Inside his chest was a terrible pain. Anselmo thought he must be having a heart attack. It felt as if a powerful hand were clasping at the pumping organ inside his chest, squeezing the life from it. Then he saw that there was a frail yellow hand doing just that. He went into the void slowly, screaming noiselessly about a grave injustice that had been done to him, because he understood in the moment of his death that Waldron Perriweather had, all along, known he was going to die, and had planned it that way.
"Good-bye, Anselmo," Remo said. He turned back to Myron. "Where's Perriweather?" he asked. Myron looked in shock at Anselmo's body, lumped on the floor, then looked back at Remo.
"He was in the Plaza in New York," Myron said.
"And all he wanted was this fly delivered?" Remo said.
"That's right."
"Remo, that one tried to be kind to me," Chiun said. "Return the favor."
"I will, Little Father. Good-bye, Myron," Rerno said.
The big man didn't feel a thing.
"Kind of overdid it, didn't you?" Remo said, looking at the human pretzel that had been Anselmo Bossiloni.
"Do not speak to me," Chiun said, turning his back on Remo. He picked up the flattened piece of parchment and brushed heel marks from it. "All I ask is for quiet and all I get is aggravation and conversation. Dull conversation."
"Sorry, Chiun. I had questions to ask."
Chiun again rose to his feet. "It is obvious that as long as you live I will get no peace."
He walked across the room toward the laboratory table.
"I wanted to know what the fly was about," Remo said.