"What happened, Mrs. Peabody?" Remo said impatiently.
"Well, it was just so rotten, I guess I went to pieces after dinner. I cried my eyes out, thinking about all kinds of things. Then I went up to kiss the boys good night. My youngest son was already asleep, but Timmy, my ten-year-old, was waiting up for me. He told me not to cry." Mrs. Peabody stared straight ahead, as if in a trance. "He said, 'Mommy, don't cry. Abraxas is going to make it all better.' That was the weirdest part of all."
Remo stood up. "I'd better go."
"You don't believe me, do you?"
"I told you I did," Remo said. "You're not crazy. You and your son aren't the only people who've seen that hallucination."
"It's not a hallucination!" she shrieked. "Abraxas is a name. He's somebody, a person. I tell you he cloned Orville, and God only knows what he's going to do to the rest of us."
"I'll check it out," Remo said.
The lady was nutty as a fruitcake. Still, something in her words made Remo shiver.
What, he asked himself on his way back to the motel. That the strange name, Abraxas, sprouting simultaneously in the minds of three people, belonged to a real person? Crazy. Simply crazy. It just wasn't possible.
God only knows what he's going to do to the rest of us.
?Chapter Six
He owed Chiun an apology.
Remo walked back slowly, trying to make sense of the strange trail where Smith's simple assignment had led him. So far, he knew next to nothing: A man named Orville Peabody had disappeared from his home to emerge three weeks later as an international assassin. Judging from his tanned skin, Peabody had probably spent those weeks in a warm climate. But doing what? And for whom? What had accounted for the drastic change in his personality shown by the photographs?
Then there was the Abraxas connection. That was the most puzzling part of the whole business. A man's dying word, seen before the fact by his wife and mentioned again by his child. Abraxas is going to make it all better, the kid had said, if Remo was to believe Mrs. Peabody.
And he did believe her. What she had told him was too close to Chiun's description of his own visions to be tossed aside as lunacy.
It had been a mistake not to trust Chiun. Abraxas was the key to the riddle that had been woven like a net around the murders of the three terrorists, and Chiun was one of the people who held it.
"Little Father, I'm sorry," Remo began as he entered the motel room, but the words stuck in his throat at the sight that confronted him.
In the middle of the room stood a black lacquer edifice of some kind, trimmed in gold and reaching as high as the ceiling. It resembled a miniature stepped pyramid, like photographs Remo had seen of the ancient Aztec tombs at Chichen Itza. At each of its many levels burned long fragrant ivory-colored tapers that made the pryamid shimmer with bright flame.
"What the hell is that?" Remo asked, incredulous.
"A shrine," Chiun said blandly.
"Where'd you get it? It looks like a model of something."
"It was. I removed it from the library."
"You stole it?"
Chiun clucked. "How crass you are. The Master of Sinanju has no need to steal. I told them you would pay for it."
"Great. That's just great." Remo paced around the room. "What'd you take it for, anyway?"
"It was not being put to proper use. Some fool had covered it with signs calling it a tomb."
"Oh," Remo said. "And of course, anyone can see what this splendid object's real use is."
"Of course."
Remo exploded. "Then would you mind letting me in on the secret? Because it sure looks like a model of a tomb to me."
"Lout." The old man sniffed. "It is an object of worship. Obviously."
"To what?"
"To Abraxas." The old man's eyes sparkled.
"Oh, no."
"I have found the knowledge I was seeking." He floated into a full lotus in front of the pyramid.
Remo sat down beside him. "Okay, who's Abraxas?"
"I thought I was a madman in your estimation."
"I was wrong."
"Naturally."
"Other people have been seeing the same thing. I've got to know, Chiun."
The old Oriental smiled smugly. "Very well. I'll tell you. Abraxas was a deity worshipped by the ancient Chaldeans from between 1000 and 600 B.C., according to your calendar. His followers proclaimed him to be a god of both good and evil, light and darkness. Hence the white candles upon the black shrine."
"600 B.C.," Remo reflected, wondering how a forgotten god from a lost civilization could possibly figure into a ring of modern-day assassins. "That's old."
"Old enough to be of merit," Chiun said, conferring his highest praise upon the deity. "Perhaps Abraxas was an acquaintance of the great Wang himself."
"Did Wang say so?"
Chiun snorted in contempt. "Not one of the greatest Master's writings was included in the inferior collection of worthless books at the library," he said. "I had to command the librarian to seek the information about Abraxas through lesser channels."
"I can't figure this out."
Chiun patted his head sympathetically. "It is not the place of white men to understand." With a quick look to the balcony, the old man rose from the floor and dashed out. "It is time," he said hurriedly, checking the position of the sun.
"For what?"
"The Noon News, featuring the lovely Cheeta Ching."
"Come on," Remo whined. "This is serious. Can't you put off watching that fly-eating armadillo until the next newscast?"