The Dead Meat Lice were to start at seven P.M. At six-thirty, it was announced over the loudspeakers, which could have cut through a swamp, that there would be a forty-five minute delay. At seven P.M., there was an announcement of an hour's delay. At eight-thirty, it was announced any minute now. At nine P.M., as a few harsh floodlights lit the periphery of the area, separating it from the darkness beyond, it was announced: «Here they come.»

There was screaming and groaning but they didn't come until ten P.M. When, under a large spotlight, a gallows was raised on the stage. Out of the blackness behind the spot swung a body on a rope. It twitched as though it were being hanged, if hanging required pelvic action similar to coitus. Then the rope seemed to break, and the body landed on its feet, alive in a skin-tight white jumpsuit cut in a wide V to the pubic hairs. Pieces of meat hung from the white satin suit, and already blood was seeping into the shiny material.

A microphone rose from the stage to man height, and Maggot spoke.

«Hello animals. You're dirt. Dirt waits hi the field,» he yelled. This was greeted by cheers. In the cheering, Remo noticed the blond man with the Indian headband make his move. The weapon he had been carrying was a small-handled ice pick. Only Remo saw it move toward Vickie Stoner, who was slowly awakening next to Remo. Remo moved on the pick. He shattered the driving wrist with his left hand and spun the boy around. The youngster's eyes widened with surprise, first at the numbness in his attacking hand, and then at what was happening at his heart. Nothing was happening. It wasn't beating. It was jelly. He collapsed, spitting internal blood, as the crowd obliviously cheered on.

The Dead Meat Lice crawled and tumbled onto the stage. There was a drummer who doubled as the beater of the gong. In a round enclosure from the right stage rose a piano, organ, and clavichord, with another Dead Meat Louse seated in the middle. A frowzy-headed man with two wind instruments pulled himself up onstage. The crowd cheered the arrival of all three Lice.

Maggot waved his arm and they sang. They sang what Remo made out to be:

«Bedred, mother-racking, tortoise, humpanny, rah, rah, humpanny, mother-racking, bedstead, rackluck.»

«Bitchen,» screamed Vickie Stoner in Remo's ear, and then the tower to their left gave a wiggle with an explosive pop, then another pop, and people were falling from it and it was coming down like a sledgehammer right where Vickie Stoner was jumping up and down, screaming along with everyone else.

The crowd would hamper free movement, so Remo grabbed Vickie like a loaf of bread and drove his way through bodies to what he felt would be the safest place. The tower came whoomphing down, eight tons of it, crushing a ten-yard-wide stretch of people with a heavy, dull splat.

Remo and Vickie were safe. They were at the base of the tower, where it had blown off its foundations head high, just where the big man with the scarred face had been casually moving his hands around.

«Bedred, mother-racking, tortoise humpanny, rah, rah, rah, humpanny, bedstead rackluck.»

«They're going on,» someone shrieked. «They're going on.»

«Dead Meat Lice go on and on. Rule forever, Dead Meat Lice,» yelled Maggot, and this was met by cheers blanketing the moans of the victims of the tower.

«Rule forever, Dead Meat Lice,» yelled Vickie Stoner. Remo grabbed her by the neck and trundled her off the periphery of the field and out through the gate, where people were not taking money anymore.

«Getcha paws off me, pig,» yelled Vickie Stoner, but Remo kept her moving.

«Get offa me,» yelled Vickie. She stopped yelling when she saw where she was being taken. She was going to the motel door where «somebody» was.

«He wants me, right?» she gasped. «He sent for me, right? Somebody sent for me. Who is he? You can't say, right? Oh, you have a key. A key to his room. You have a key to His room.»

Remo no longer had to hold her by the neck. Vickie Stoner jumped up and down excitedly.

«I thought you were going to do a job on me,» she said. «I didn't know. I've had Nels Borson. You know Nels Borson? I had him. I had him good. And I had the Hindenburghs. Right at the airport. They were waiting to leave. I had them all.»

Remo opened the door, and when Vickie Stoner saw the wisp of an imperial-looking Oriental in midnight-blue kimono sitting on a mat, meditating, she emitted a little excited groan.

Remo shut the door.

«Oh, heavy, heavy, heavy. Rule over all. Rule forever,» she said, and knelt before Chiun. Chiun allowed imperious recognition that something was in his presence. Overwhelmed by the slow, arrogant movement, Vickie Stoner pressed her forehead into the mat.

«From the youth of your country, you should learn,» said Chiun to Remo.

«Wait'll you find out what she wants.»

«You're the baddest,» sighed Vickie.

«This little girl already knows more than you, Remo.»

«Rule over all,» said Vickie.

«And she perceives my proper place.»

«Who are you?»

«The Master of Sinanju.»

«Fuh-reak out. Sinanju. Bitchen Sinanju, man.»

«See, Remo?»

«She doesn't know what you're talking about, Little Father. She hasn't heard of Sinanju. Maybe a half-dozen people alive know Sinanju, and they don't talk about it.»

«Diamonds are not more valuable because everyone has them,» said Chiun.

«Good night,» said Remo, and went to the bathroom to see if he could find some cotton for his ears, knowing that would not help because the vibrations of Maggot and the Dead Meat Lice carried through the walls and the floor of the motel.

Outside, Willie the Bomb Bombella sat in his Continental, an artist frustrated, a craftsman who sees pernicious fate destroy his work. The tower went right. It went fine. It went beautifully. But then along the edge of the crowd was the little red-headed broad with the big mouth and the faggy looking guy with the thick wrists. She was alive. A million dollars from Willie. Right out of the mouths of Willie's children, he had stolen it. Right out of Willie's mattress at home, he had stolen it. Like he had broken into Willie's house or rifled his pockets, he had stolen it.

Willie had to get even, despite the fact that they were in a motel with such shoddy structure that the retaining walls hardly retained, and what held it together was sometimes the plaster. There was nothing really good to work against, like brick, or even wood. Wood was good. It gave you splinters like a hand grenade if you did it right. But what was this motel? It was nothing. Might as well blow up an empty field. It gave the creative genius of Willie the Bomb Bombella all the inspiration it needed.

Suppose he handled the motel like an empty field and considered each room a giant gopher hole with gophers as his goal? Perhaps a combination of concussive effect and propelled missiles. He could probably get the girl too. Still make the million.

Willie went to the trunk of his car and started stringing wires, mixing chemicals, and adjusting templates in the small motor device he began to construct. He whistled a tune he had heard in a Walt Disney movie. The tune was «Whistle While you Work.»

From the corner of his eye, he saw the door of the thief's room open. It cast a whitish light into the motel parking area. He saw the thief, the guy with the thick wrists who had saved the redhead, walk out. The guy had the nerve to even walk right up to him.

Willie straightened up. He stood almost six inches taller than the little guy and topped him by almost a hundred pounds.

«Whaddaya want?» asked Willie in a tone that in others usually triggered unplanned release of bowels or bladder.

«To break you,» Remo said gently.

«What are you talking about?»

«I'm going to break you into little pieces until you beg me to kill you. What are you doing?»