"Get on with it," said Remo.
"Well, I reported Pell to the school system administration and he threatened me and…"
"Hold it," said Remo. "That dog won't hunt. I know you and Pell were in this killer-kid operation. I know there was a lot of money involved. So don't give me any school-system crap. Start telling the truth."
"All right," Sashur said with a sigh. "I was in love with Pell. That's why I split from my husband. He tricked me into working with the kids for him. Then when my husband was killed, I met Pell and he said there was trouble, but that he had no worries. Then he said he was going to hand me up as my husband's killer. Who else had a better motive? I was still in the twerp's will. I'd wind up frying."
"That's absurd," Remo said.
"Not if you know your husband and you know all those mob people he was working for back in Detroit. I panicked, and I told Alvin to shoot Pell."
"Who was the boss of the operation?" Remo asked.
"Pell, of course."
"How was he getting the locations of the victims?"
Sashur shrugged. "I don't know. He handled all that. He just gave me the names to pass onto the kids… Look," she said suddenly. "It's over now. Pell is dead. Maybe I did wrong, but I did some right too, in finishing him off. Now can't you just let me be? You won't gain anything by turning me in."
Remo shook his head and noticed Sashur look at her watch, which she wore on her left wrist in a heavy leather band that would have been at home on a longshoreman.
"But you won't gain anything by putting me away," said Sashur. "I'll give you anything. Anything I have."
Chiun turned from the wall and smiled at Remo.
"How like the Western mind to think that all things and all people are for sale," he said.
"My paintings," Sashur said. She looked toward Chiun. "My collection of gold coins."
Remo shook his head.
"Just a minute, my son," said Chiun. "Some things certainly deserve consideration. The gold coins are a pleasant offering to our house."
"No," said Remo to Chiun. "We're not dealing."
"These are good coins," said Chiun. "Of course they are behind glass and I cannot examine them closely but they are worth much if they are authentic."
"No deals."
"But surely nothing is served by turning in this gracious young lady. Is that helping the Constitution to survive?"
Sashur looked at her watch again.
"I've got to talk to Smitty," said Remo. "From you," he told Sashur, "I want a list of the names of all Pell's kids."
"I'll get it, I'll get it." Sashur stood up. "It's in the bedroom."
"Just a minute," Remo said. He walked to the door of the bedroom and looked in. The only doors belonged to closets. The only windows opened up onto thirteen stories of empty space.
"Okay, get it for me."
He left her in the bedroom and went back to the living room, where Chiun was fingering the frame of the coin collection.
"I believe there is real gold leaf used on this frame," Chiun said.
"Now listen, Chiun. We can't go around letting everybody go who offers a bribe to Sinanju."
Chiun recoiled from the frame as if it were electrically charged. "A bribe? Is that what you call an offering? A bribe?" He clapped his hand to his forehead. "My own son. Adopted, of course. A bribe."
"A bribe," said Remo. "Now no more of it. We're going to get the list and then talk to Smitty before we decide what to do. He might want to handle this himself." He looked toward the bedroom. "She's taking long enough to get a list."
He approached the door just as Sashur emerged. "Here it is." She handed Remo a piece of paper with a dozen names on it. As she handed over the paper, she glanced again at her gold watch.
"These are all of them?" Remo asked.
"All I know about."
"How did they get moved around the country? Your husband was hit in North Carolina."
"Warner Pell called them class trips. Special rewards for outstanding students. He took the kids out of town himself."
"They must have been gone for days at a time. Didn't their parents ever complain?"
"Complain? Why should they complain? First of all, they are not the best of people. Second, they knew what their kids were doing, and they were getting well paid for it."
"How much?"
"Warner never told me."
"Make a guess," Remo said.
"I think the kids were getting fifty thousand dollars for each job."
"The Mafia only pays five," Remo said.
"Yeah, but Warner worked for the school system. He thought big."
"Hear that, Little Father. Fifty thousand dollars for a kid. And think of the work we do."
Chiun refused to turn away from the coin collection. "Money is paper," he said. "It is not value, just a promise of value. Gold is real."
"Don't mind him," Remo told Sashur. "He's pouting."
"Are you going to turn me in ?"
"Not just yet," Remo said. "Come here, I want to show you something."
He walked toward the bedroom. As Sashur followed, she said with a smile, "I'd like to show you something too."
But before she could show Remo her something, he showed her his something, which was the inside of a closet which he locked with the key.
"Why are you doing this?" she yelled through the wood-painted steel door.
"I just want you to stay put while I check this all out."
"You're a prick," she said.
"The worst," Remo agreed.
"A no-good, rotten, reneging bastard prick."
"I'd recognize myself anywhere." Remo jammed the lock of the closet door for good measure.
In the living room, Chiun said, "That woman is a liar."
"Why? What did she say to us?"
"She said these were very valuable coins. But there are many that are more valuable. Doubloons, pieces of eight, they are all worth more than these. Still, these are not bad."
"Chiun, stop that, will you please?"
In the hallway outside Sashur's apartment, Remo and Chiun were met by two overweight middle-aged men puffing down the hall from the elevator.
"Kaufperson," one panted. "Do you know where her apartment is?"
"Sure. Why?" said Remo.
"Police business, buddy," said the other man, his chest heaving from the strain of the twenty-foot run from the elevator.
Remo pointed to the door. "That's her apartment."
The two men ran past him.
"But you won't find her there," Remo said.
They stopped at the door.
"Why not?"
"I saw her leaving five minutes ago. She had a suitcase with her."
"Did she say where she was going?"
"She did as a matter of fact," Remo said. "I live just down the hall there. She came in to borrow some shoe polish. She's got this thing about shiny shoes. Uses only Kiwi and she was-"
"Get to it, man. Where was she going?"
"She said she was flying to Spokane, Washington. To see her folks. Old Mother and Father Kaufperson and all the little Kaufpeople."
"We better call the captain," one detective said. The heaving of his chest was beginning to subside.
"C'mon, fellas, why don't you tell me what this is all about. Maybe I can help," Remo said.
"Did you see the news tonight?"
"No," said Remo.
"No," said Chiun. "But I saw 'As the Planet Revolves'. It was very good today. Rad Rex is getting better and better since I have taught him how to move."
The two detectives glanced at each other. "Anyway on the news there was this story about this general who said there were two assassins around from the CIA. A white guy and an Oriental. And Kaufperson called and said they were coming after her. We're here to protect her."
"I guess she decided to run away," Remo said. "A white man and an Oriental, you say?"
"Right."
"We haven't seen anybody like that around here, have we?"
"No," said Chiun. "I have seen no Oriental and you have seen no white man."