"Yup," he said.
"Nothing else?"
"Go back to your seat."
She did, and Remo watched her go. There was something wrong with this young lady. He wondered if Chiun had noticed it, but Chiun was busy with several people who were agreeing with him that workmanship throughout America was becoming shoddy. The true professional was a thing of the past. Chiun nodded sagely and pulled another petition from his kimono: "STOP AMATEUR ASSASSINS."
Remo let Holly Rodan get off the plane with the man she had been fawning over, but just as she was about to be picked up by some young friends, Remo moved in on the car and told the salesman to get lost.
The man threatened to call the police. Remo noticed his wedding ring and said, "Good. And call your wife too."
"Talk about a semischeduled airline. I've never seen such bad service," the salesman said.
"He has a right to come with us," said Holly. "We want to give him a lift."
"Give me a lift," said Remo.
"We don't want to give you a lift."
"We'll give him a lift," said the man in the front seat.
"We're not giving this son of a bitch a lift," Holly said. "I've got the other man who wants to go with us, and we're not giving this one a lift. He's a lousy stewardess and I wouldn't give him a lift to hell in a handbasket. "
The young man in the front seat did not try to reason with her, as her mother had, nor did he seek, as her father had, to understand the deeper meaning of her complaints. He did not attempt, as her teachers had, to establish a bridge of understanding.
What he did was far more effective than anything else that had ever been practiced on her. He slapped her in the mouth. Very hard.
"We would be happy to give you a lift, traveler," she told Remo.
"Much obliged," he said. "You people travel much?"
"Only when we have to," said the man next to the driver. The airport was Raleigh-Durham and they asked Remo if he wanted to go to Duke University or Chapel Hill.
"I just want to talk," Remo said.
"We like to talk too," said the passenger in the front seat. His hand rested over his shirt pocket and Remo knew that the pocket contained a weapon, although all that he could see was a yellow handkerchief.
They stopped the car near a small woods to have a picnic. They said they were hungry and had, in fact, been describing the odors and tastes, the crispness of fried chicken, the succulence of lobster in butter, the smooth richness of chocolate in the throat. When Remo thought about these things, his stomach became queasy, but he said nothing because, they obviously were trying to work up his appetite.
They parked the car and walked with Remo along a little path to a clearing, where they opened a picnic basket.
"Excuse me," said the man who had been sitting next to the driver. "Can I get this around your throat?"
"Sure," said Remo. So the handkerchief wasn't hiding a weapon. It was the weapon. The others grabbed his legs and hands. The handkerchief became a cord and circled his neck and then closed and tightened. Remo counteracted the contraction with neck pressure. He did not fight it with his muscles. He just lay there with people sprawled across his arms and legs.
The strangler pulled. Remo lay there.
"She loves it, She loves it," said Holly Rodan.
"The hell She does," said the driver. "Look, he's not even turning red."
Remo let the blood pressure rise in his head so his face reddened.
"There it goes," said the driver.
"Now She loves it," said Holly.
"Why isn't he struggling? Pull harder," the driver said.
The noose tightened. The phansigar's forehead broke out in perspiration. His knuckles whitened and his wrists strained. Holly Rodan dropped an arm to help pull on the other side of the rumal. She pulled and the phansigar pulled. The demon about to be offered up to Kali smiled and then the rumal snapped in half.
"Hi," said Remo. "Let's talk about strangling and robbery."
"You're not dead," said the phansigar.
"Some people might give you an argument about that," Remo said.
The driver made a break for the car. Remo caught one leg, then the other leg. He whipped the body into a tree, where it folded up neatly with a snap of the spinal column, then convulsed once and was still.
The phansigar opened his mouth, and then breakfast came up as he looked at the driver. The body was bent in two, backwards, with the nape of the neck touching the heels.
"Don't make bodies the way they used to," Remo said. "Now, the Neanderthal, that was a man. Solid. You hit a Neanderthal against a tree and the tree would break. Look at this guy. Never going to fix him. He's done. Just one little bang on a tree and he's done. What do you think, sweetheart?"
"Me?" said Holly Rodan. She was still holding half of the yellow rumal in her hand.
"You, him, I don't care," Remo said. "What's going on?"
"We're practicing our religion. We have a right," said the phansigar.
"Why are you killing people?"
"Why do Catholics say Mass? Why do Protestants sing or Jews chant?"
"It's not nice to strangle and rob," Remo said.
"That's what you say," the phansigar said.
"How would you like it if I killed you?"
"Go ahead," said the phansigar. "Long live death." Remo felt himself hesitate. He looked at the girl, and she was just as calm as the other young man. That was why he had sensed nothing about the girl on the just Folks flight.
"Go ahead," said the young man.
"Sure," said Remo. "If you insist," and dropped him like a loose marble onto the picnic basket.
"Long live pain," the young man gasped as he expired.