"Let go of me," Bronzini snarled. "He's hurt bad."
"No. You come."
"I said let me-"
Bronzini never got the next word out. The sky and ground swapped perspectives. He was suddenly on his back. The shock blew the air out of his lungs. Stunned, he wondered if he had caught a stray bullet. And as other gunshots sounded in the background, he was lifted by several husky Japanese and dumped into the waiting Nishitsu van.
He was whisked from the Shilo Inn at high speed. "What happened?" Bronzini asked the hovering Jiro Isuzu in a dazed voice.
"Judo. Necessary."
"The fuck."
Chapter 4
It was dawn when Remo Williams was dropped off in front of his Rye, New York, home by taxi.
Remo handed the driver a crisp hundred dollar bill. "Merry Christmas," Remo said. "Keep the change."
"Hey, Merry Christmas to you too, buddy. You must be expecting a whale of a holiday yourself."
"Nah. I'm on an unlimited expense account."
"Thanks just the same," the cabby said, pulling off. It was not snowing in Rye, New York. The storm that had blanketed New England had passed through New York State the previous day. The town had already cleared the sidewalk with a small tractor snow blower. Its caterpillar tracks had left their unmistakable imprints. But Remo's walkway was buried.
Remo placed one foot on the crust of snow that covered the walk. His breathing changed. His arms seemed to lift slightly from his sides as if they were filled with air instead of bone and blood and muscle.
Remo walked across the thin frozen crust of the snow without breaking through. He felt light as a feather. He was a feather. He thought like a feather, moved like a feather, and the thin hard crust reacted to him as if each foot was a feather duster.
Remo went in his front door with the expression of a man who had slogged through a sloppy wet snowbank in his stocking feet, not one who had executed a feat that other men would have scorned as impossible.
Even the novelty of having a home to come back to for the first time since he joined the organization did not lift his spirits. The living room consisted of bare walls, a hardwood floor, and a big-screen TV. Two straw mats sat on the floor before the screen.
Somehow, it was not very homey.
Remo walked to his bedroom. It, too, was only four walls and a bare floor. A futonlike mat stretched out in one corner. His wardrobe, consisting of six pairs of chinos and an assortment of black and white T-shirts, lay neatly folded at the bottom of a closet. On ,a shelf above a cluster of empty wire hangers were racked a dozen pairs of handmade Italian leather loafers.
From the other bedroom came a series of long, drawnout sounds, like a goose honking.
"Braaawwwwkkkk!"
"Hnnnnkkkkkkk!" Snoring.
Remo decided he wasn't sleepy. Turning on his heel, he made for the door.
Remo later pulled up in front of an all-night drugstore, asked the woman behind the counter if she accepted credit cards, and when he got a yes in return, he went straight to the Christmas-decoration shelf There were more bulbs, candy canes, and tinsel than he could carry at one time, so he took hold of the shelf at each end and applied pressure. The crack was instantaneous. Remo carried the entire shelf to the cash register.
"Oh, my God," the girl said.
"Put all this stuff on my card," Remo said, slipping the plastic onto the glass counter.
"You broke the shelf."
"Yeah. Sorry about that. Just add it to the bill." Outside, Remo set the shelf on the hood of his Buick. He opened the trunk, and balancing the shelf carefully, upended it over the open trunk. The packages rattled down the shelf like coal down a cellar chute.
Remo tossed the shelf into a cluster of trash barrels and closed the trunk.
His next stop was at a used-ear lot with a banner that said "Christmas Trees Cheap." The lot hadn't opened for the day, so Remo took his time examining the stock. The first one he liked looked too tall for his living room. The second left dry pine needles in his hands when he grasped one of the branches experimentally.
Remo went through every tree on the lot and decided that if the cars for sale were in the same shape as the trees, the driving public was in mortal peril. "Nobody respects Christmas anymore," Remo growled as, one by one, he picked up the trees by their bases and, like a farmer shucking corn, stripped them of their branches with one-handed sweeps.
Remo left a note that said, "I got carried away with the spirit of the season. Sorry. Send me a bill." He didn't sign it or leave an address.
Disgusted, Remo next drove to the golf course that spawled behind his house. There he picked his way among the evergreens. He found a young one he liked and, kneeling beside it, felt all around the base to get a sense of its root system. When he found a weak point, he used the side of his hand to sever the root.
By the time he was done, the evergreen came out of the frozen ground as easily as a daisy. Remo carried it to his back door over his shoulder like Paul Bunyan. He got it through the door so expertly he lost only three needles.
Remo set the tree in one corner of the room. It balanced perfectly, even without a stand. Remo had flattened out the roots to form a natural base.
Getting the decorations from the car, he proceeded to decorate the tree. He took his time with it. After two hours, the tightness began to leave his face and the beginning of a contented smile crinkled the corners of his deep-set eyes. In another minute he would have begun to hum "Little Drummer Boy."
That moment never came.
From out of the bedroom, the continued adenoidal goose honking abruptly died down, to be replaced by the rustle of silk. And then, so softly that only Remo's ears could have heard, came the shuffle of sandals.
Chiun, Reigning Master of Sinanju, looked into the room. His eyes alighted on the lean, muscular back of his adopted son. Momentary pleasure illuminated his wise hazel orbs. Remo was home. It was good to behold him once more.
Then he noticed what Remo was doing.
"Pah!" he spat. "I see that it is Jesus Time again."
"It's called Christmas," Remo said over his shoulder, "and I was just getting into the mood before you mouthed off."
"Mouthed off!" Chiun squeaked. "I did not mouth off, whatever that is." The Master of Sinanju was old. Only his eyes looked young. He was a tiny Oriental with only smoky puffs of white hair over his ears and another wisp at his chin. He wore a yellow silk kimono. His hands were joined within its linked sleeves.
"I did not mouth off," Chiun repeated when Remo ignored him and returned to stringing lengths of silver wire on the evergreen tree. Remo said nothing.
"Trees belong outdoors," Chiun added.
Remo sighed. "This is a Christmas tree. They're for indoors. And if you don't want to help, fine. Just stay out of my way. This is our first Christmas in our new home. I'm going to enjoy it. With or without you."
Chiun meditated on the matter. "This tree reminds me of those magnificent ones which dot the hillsides of my native Korea," he pointed out. "The scent is very much the same."
"Then pitch in," Remo said, mollified.
"And you have killed it for your pagan ceremony," Chiun added harshly.