"Yeah. They're Japanese."
"Hey, I may be having a bad streak, but I haven't sunk to doing cheap foreign films. Yet. You know better than that."
"These guys aren't cheap. They're big. The biggest."
"Never heard of them."
"Nishitsu is the biggest Japanese conglomerate in the entire world. They're into VCR's, home computers, cameras. They're the ones who landed the contract to produce the Japanese version of the F-16."
"The F-16!"
"That's what their representative told me. I think it's a camera."
"It's a fighter jet. Top-of-the-line Air Force combat model. "
"Wow! They are big."
"Damn straight," Bartholomew Bronzini said, noticing for the first time that his message machine had the word NISHITSU on the front.
"They have money to burn and they want to go into films. Yours will be the first. They want to take a meeting with you soonest."
"Set it up."
"It's already set up. You're on the red-eye to Tokyo." I am not going to Tokyo. Let them come to me."
"That's not how it's done over there. You know that. You did those ham commercials for Japanese TV."
"Don't remind me," Bronzini said, wincing. When his film career had started to slip, he accepted a deal to do food commercials for the Japanese market, on the understanding that they never appear on U. S. TV. The National Enquirer broke the story as "Bartholomew Bronzini Goes to Work in Slaughterhouse. "
"Well, that ham company is a Nishitsu subsidiary. They've got their hands in everything."
Bronzini hesitated. "They want to do my script, huh?"
"That's not the best part. They're offering you one hundred million to star. Can you believe it?"
"How many bucks equals one hundred million yen?"
"That's the beauty of it. They're paying in dollars. Are these Japs crazy, or what?"
Bartholomew Bronzini's first reaction was, "Nobody pays that much to any actor." His second was, "What about points?"
"They're offering points."
"Against net or gross?" Bronzini asked suspiciously. "Gross. I know it sounds insane."
"It is insane and you know it. I'm not going near this."
"But it gets better, Bart, baby. They lined up Kurosawa to direct."
"Akira Kurosawa? He's a fucking master. I'd kill to work with him. This can't be real."
"There are a few strings," Shawn admitted. "They want to make a few script changes. Tiny ones. I know you usually get complete creative control, but I gotta tell you, Bart, there may be a lot of fish out there, but this is the only one biting."
"Tell me about it. I just came back from Dwarf-Star."
"How'd it go?"
"It was a bad scene."
"You didn't tear off your shirt again, did you?"
"I lost my head. It happens."
"How many times do I gotta tell you, that won't work anymore. Muscles are eighties. But okay, done is done. So are you on that plane or what? And before you answer, I gotta tell you it's gonna be either this, or you'd better start thinking seriously about Ringo VI: Back from the Dead."
"Anything but that," Bronzini said with a rueful laugh. "He fought more rounds than Ali. Okay, I guess beggars can't be choosers."
"Great. I'll set it up. Ciao. You're loved." Bartholomew Bronzini hung up the phone. He noticed that although the phone said MANGA on it, the corporate symbol matched that of the Nishitsu symbol on his message machine.
He went to his personal computer and began typing in instructions to his flock of servants. He noticed the keyboard carried the Nishitsu brand name too.
Bartholomew Bronzini grunted an explosive laugh. "Good thing we won the war," he said, not realizing the irony of his own words.
Chapter 2
His name was Remo, and, he was going to kill Santa Claus if it was the last thing he ever did.
There was snow falling on College Hill, overlooking Providence, Rhode Island. Big puffy flakes of it. They fell with a faint hiss that only one possessing Remo s acute hearing could detect. The snow had just started, but already it formed a pristine blanket under his feet.
It remained pristine after Remo walked over it. His Italian loafers made no imprint. He walked deserted Benefit Street, as quietly and stealthily as a jungle cat. His T-shirt was so white that only his skinny arms with their unusually thick wrists showed against the falling flakes. Remo's chinos were gray. Snow clung to them in patches so that they too were predominantly white. The camouflage effect made Remo almost invisible.
Camouflage had nothing to do with not leaving footprints, however.
Remo paused in mid-stride and ran his eyes along the silent rows of well-preserved Colonial-style homes with their distinctive glass fanlights. There were no cars on Benefit Street. It was after eleven P.m. Providence goes to bed early. But this week, the week before Christmas, it was not the ordinary sleeping habits of this insular city that made its inhabitants retire early. It was fear-fear of Santa Claus.
Remo started off again. In the spot where he had stood there were two shallow but well-defined footprints. But none leading away. Had Remo looked back to observe this phenomenon, his high-cheekboned face might have registered surprise. Not at the two inexplicable footsteps themselves, for he took it for granted that when he walked, leaves did not crinkle under his tread, nor sand displace. But for what they represented-the fact that, officially, he no longer existed.
Once, many Christmases ago, Remo had been a New Jersey cop. A pusher's murder was blamed on him, and Remo got the chair. And a second chance. The chance effectively erased his previous existence and brought forth a new, improved Remo.
For Remo became a Master of Sinanju. Trained as an assassin, he worked for a secret arm of the United States government known only as CURE. His job was to locate and eliminate the nation's enemies.
Tonight his assignment was to kill Santa Claus. Remo had nothing against Saint Nick. In fact, he had not believed in Santa in a long time. Saint Nick was a jolly elf who symbolized childhood, a childhood that Remo had never really experienced to the full. He had been raised in an orphanage.
But while Remo had been denied a normal childhood, he did not resent it. Much. Maybe a little. Usually around this time of the year, actually, when he realized that the universal celebration of childhood, Christmas, was something he would never truly know.
This was why Remo had to kill Santa Claus. The bastard was ruining it for other children-children who had fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters. Innocent children with warm homes and Christmas trees they decorated with family instead of orphanage nuns. Remo would never see a Christmas like theirs. But he'd be damned if another little boy or girl would be denied Christmas by a fat slob in a red suit carring a fire ax. Remo finished his sweep of Benefit Street. This was the old section of Providence, where time seemed to have stood still. The streetlamps might have been standing a century ago. The houses belonged to another era. Most of the low stone steps boasted wrought-iron foot scrapers, which in the days of horse-drawn cars saw constant use. Now they were merely quaint relics.