"No." .
"Why not?"
"Because I say so."
"Oh." She sounded hurt
"Hah. It hurts when the shoe's on the other foot, doesn't it?"
"What shoe?"
"It's just an American expression. What country are you from, anyway? Ah-ah-ah, just testing. I know you aren't going to tell me."
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She stretched herself like a cat. The sight of her naked body in daylight gave Remo a pang of sadness. He dropped his shoe and stood for a few moments, watching her, wondering if he would ever see her again.
"Let's quit this," he said, disgusted.
"What?"
"This secrecy crap. I want us to see each other again. Tell me how I can reach you."
"I'll follow you," she said.
He shook his head. He didn't trust himself to talk.
"Why not?" she asked.
"You can't, that's all. Not where I'm going."
"Oh, I see. You think I'm too frail and delicate for your rowdy life."
"You're about as frail as a Sherman tank." He slipped on his T-shirt. It smelled of her.
She walked over to him and took his hands.
"Don't, okay?" He broke away from her, suddenly angry. "You can't go, and I can't tell you why, and this is the last time I'm going to see your funny face because, for some reason, you want us to keep on being strangers. So don't make it any harder than it already is." He walked to the door.
"Remo ..." She came to him and kissed him. And again, it felt as if she had been with him all his life.
"Tell me who you are," he whispered. "I don't care if you're on the run from somebody, or married, or whatever. I don't even care how you know about me. I just want to be able to find you when I get back."
She gazed at him for a long time. Then, frowning, she lowered her eyes.
He waited in silence for what seemed an eternity. Finally he spoke, burning with shame. "Just asking," he said bitterly.
"Please-"
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"Hey. No need to make excuses. Believe me, I don't want any strings, either. It was a swell one-night stand."
He ran down the hotel steps, hot-wired the first unguarded car he saw, and laid a strip of rubber a mile long.
"Bitch," he muttered, speeding out of the city. He was never going to get mixed up with women again. He would limit himself to tarts and dumbbells. If no tarts or dumbbells were available, he'd settle for cold showers.
What was so special about what's-her-name, anyway, he asked himself. He'd just been lonesome and horny. As a matter of fact, she was as ordinary as they came. Couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. And her nose was crooked. Didn't even know how to use a fork.
She was freaking weird, when it came right down to it. Eyes that kept changing colors, like a kaleidoscope. Muscles like a damned stevedore under that silky skin. Probably lifted weights on her lunch hour. He wouldn't be surprised if she was a dyke. Or worse. One of those Scandinavian sex-change jobs. By God, that was why she wouldn't give him her name! Call me Harry, darling. Hell, he was glad to be rid of her.
But oh, the taste of her lips.
Forget it. What was done was done. Even if it never started.
He made it to Wales in record time. Stopping at a village to buy some gas with all the money he had left, he considered buying a map of the area, but discarded the idea. Michelin didn't include places like the Valley of the Forest Primeval on its maps. He was too embarrassed even to ask directions to such a ridiculous-sounding place, even if Chiun did insist that it was the correct address.
He headed north. It seemed like the more primeval route. By the time the roads changed from stone to earth, and the rickety wooden signposts touted places like Llanfairfechan and Caernarfon as major metropolises hun-
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dreds of kilometers distant, the late afternoon mist was beginning to settle along the mossy banks where he drove. The trees were huge here, lush pines stretching to the clouds. Insects and hidden forest animals seemed to be everywhere, chattering endlessly. The air was thick and sweet.
Remo drove the car down the narrowing road, overgrown almost to invisibility by grass, until the road petered off into a footpath and then, in the distance, disappeared altogether.
"Great," Remo said out loud. "Just freaking great." He must have come fifty miles on that road. "Valley of the Forest Primeval. I've got to be out of my gourd."
He slammed the gears into reverse and backed up. "Look on the bright side," he explained to the steering wheel. "The one good thing about having a rotten day is that after a certain point it doesn't get any worse, right?"
He was looking over his shoulder when the rock smashed his windscreen.
"Wrong," he muttered, getting out of the car.
There was a rustling somewhere in the forest. He ran toward it.
Nothing. Everything was still once he reached the shadows of the pines. The chipmunks and squirrels kept up their angry chatter.
Must have been a freak accident, he decided, coming back to the road. A rock that got spun up by the tires . . .
He closed his eyes, hoping it was all a bad dream, then opened them again. No dream. All four tires were flat.
He examined one. A puncture. A very neat puncture, executed by a sharp metal instrument. The others were the same.
"I can't believe it," he said. He'd always thought of vandalism as an urban problem. But there wasn't even a