"We have to stop him," Smith said.
"What do you have against the poor of Sinanju?" Chiun asked.
"Listen to me, Master of Sinanju. Remo is running amok in Detroit, I think. He may be on the other side."
Chiun spat. "There is no other side. There is only Sinanju."
"He shot a man today."
"Shot?"
"With a gun," said Smith.
"Aiiiieeee," wailed Chiun.
"Now you understand the gravity of the situation," Smith said.
"A gun," said Chiun. "To profane Sinanju with a mechanical weapon. It is not possible. Remo would not dare. "
"Someone shot the president of Dynacar Industries earlier today. People took a list of names of everyone there, and Remo's name was on the list."
"There is your proof that you are mistaken," Chiun said. "Remo cannot even write his own name."
"Chiun, you have to go to Detroit. If Remo shows up and is free-lancing, you have to stop him."
"This is outside our contracted agreements," Chiun said.
"We'll talk about that later. I'm sending a car for you and I've booked you on a flight in an hour."
"Outside our contract," Chiun repeated.
"We'll worry about that later," Smith said.
"Earlier we had discussed some land," Chiun said.
"Forget Disneyland. If Remo's acting on his own, you have to stop him. That's in the contract. And then there won't be any more contracts.
"Very well. I will go. But I tell you that Remo would never use a gun or any boom thing."
"When you get there, you can see if that's right or not," Smith said. "This would-be killer has threatened the heads of all the major auto companies."
"Then who will I guard?" Chiun asked. "How do I choose?"
"Today, the gunman tried to get Lyle Lavallette. He's a very high-profile automaker. Always in the press. It may be logical that his next target will be Drake Mangan, the head of National Autos. He's just written a book and he's on a lot of television shows. If Remo or whoever it is is trying to make a publicity splash, Mangan might be next on the list."
"I will go see this Mangan and I will bring you this impostor's head, so you can apologize to both Remo and me for your error. Good-bye."
Chiun slammed down the telephone, cracking the receiver and sending internal parts flying like popping corn. Working for a white was bad enough but working for a white lunatic was worse. Still, what if Smith were right? What if something had happened and Remo was working on his own?
Chin looked across the room at his thirteen steamer trunks. He decided he would pack light. He would not be in Detroit for long. Just six steamer trunks.
Chapter 7
Drake Mangan had become the head of the huge National Auto Company the old-fashioned way: he had married into it.
Since the beginning of the auto industry, the Cranston family-beginning with Jethro Cranston, who hooked a steam engine onto a horseless carriage back in 1898-had spearheaded virtually every major development that ran on rubber tires. When old Jethro had died, his son Grant took over and Cranston went international. And when the next son, Brant, took over, everyone knew the future of Cranston Motors was assured for at least another generation. A drunk driver in a Ford pickup changed all that when he plowed into Brant Cranston's limousine at a stop sign in 1959.
Control of the company fell then into the somewhat shaky hands of the sole surviving Cranston, Myra. At the time, Myra was twenty-two, spoiled, and on her way to earning a black belt in social drinking. Drake Mangan was her boyfriend.
They had been in a restaurant overlooking the Detroit River when the bad news came. Drake Mangan had picked the restaurant, whose wines were the priciest in the city, to break the bad news that he was calling it quits after eight months of dating Myra and not getting to first base. He waited until Myra had gone through two bottles of Bordeaux before broaching the subject. He hoped she was drunk enough not to throw a tantrum because her tantrums were famous.
"Myra, I have something very important to tell you," Mangan began. He was an impressive man of thirty, although his hooded dark eyes and aquiline nose made him look a solid ten years older. He was chief comptroller at Cranston Motors and had been attracted to Myra solely because she was the boss's daughter. But even that enticement had worn thin after eight months of dating the woman Detroit society had nicknamed the Iron Virgin.
Myra giggled. Her eyes shone with giddy alcoholic light.
"Yesh, Drake."
"We've been together for almost a year now-"
"Eight months," Myra corrected, lifting her glass in a toast. "Eight looooooong months."
"Yes. And there comes a time in every relationship when it either grows or dies. And I think that in the case of ours, it has-"
At that moment, a pair of uniformed police officers came to their table, their faces so solemnly set that they might have been a pair of walking bookends.
"Miss Cranston?" one of them said. "I regret to inform you that there's been a terrible tragedy in your family. Your brother is . . . gone."
Myra looked at the officer through an uncomprehending alcoholic haze.
"Gone," she said. "Gone where?"
The officers looked even more uncomfortable. "What I mean to say, Miss Cranston, is that he is deceased. I'm sorry."
"I don't understand," said Myra Cranston truthfully. She gave a little bubbly hiccup at that point.
Drake Mangan understood. He understood perfectly. He handed each officer a twenty-dollar bill and said, "Thank you both very much. I think I should handle this."
The officers were happy to comply and walked quickly from the restaurant.
"What was that all about?" asked Myra, filling another pair of wineglasses. She had red wine on the right and white wine on the left. She liked to drink them alternately. Sometimes she mixed them. Once she had mixed them in a saucer and sipped from it.
"I'll explain later, darling," Mangan said.
"First time you ever called me darling," Myra said with a giggle.
"That's because I've made a discovery," Drake Mangan said, summoning up all the sincerity he could muster. "I love you, Myra."
"You do?" She hiccuped.
"Passionately. And I want to marry you." He took her clammy blotched-skin hand in his. "Will you marry me, dearest?" He felt like throwing up but business was business.
"This is so sudden."
"I can't wait. Let's get married tonight. We'll find a justice of the peace."
"Tonight? With my brother gone? He'd want to be there. "
"He'll understand. Come on, let's get going." The justice of the peace was reluctant.
"Are you sure you want to marry her?" he asked dubiously.
"Of course," said Mangan. "What's wrong with her?"
"Your intended can barely stand up."
"Then we'll have the ceremony sitting down. Here's the ring. Let's get on with it, man."
"Are you sure you wish to marry this man, miss?" the justice asked Myra.
Myra giggled. "My brother's gone but he won't mind."
The justice of the peace shrugged and performed the ceremony.
There was no honeymoon. Just a funeral for Brant Cranston. Even after the funeral, there had been no honeymoon, and now, almost thirty years later, Myra Cranston Mangan was still, as far as her husband knew, a virgin.
But Drake Mangan didn't care. He now had control of Cranston Motors and he kept control of it during all the buyouts and mergers and reorganizations that got rid of the classic old Big Three and created a new Big Three: General Autos, American Autos, and National Autos, which Mangan now headed.
President of National Autos. Drawing his million-dollar-a-year salary. It was all that mattered to Drake Mangan. Except, maybe someday, getting into his wife's pants. Just to see what it was like.