"Maybe I'd be better off letting my nails grow, after all," he grumbled, applying scarlet to his dragon.
AN HOUR AND TEN CANS of scarlet and metallic gold later, Remo's Dragoon looked as if it had been defaced by drunken graffiti artists. He had switched to Western style. The result-no dragon. Nothing that looked remotely like a dragon. Nothing that looked remotely like anything.
Seeing that his hands were flecked with paint droplets, Remo decided to call it a day. Maybe tomorrow was the day a dragon would come.
Reaching the door, Remo found it locked.
"Uh-oh."
No sense breaking in the door. Chiun would never let him hear the end of it.
Remo walked around the building. It was a hot summer day, so certain windows would be open for ventilation.
He found one at the far end, high up just under the eaves.
Remo looked around. No cars on the streets. No nosy people walking by. Perfect.
Taking hold of the fieldstone side, he let his fingertips sense the surface, absorbing its imperfections. It looked smooth to the eyes, but in fact was very rough. Crooking his fingers, Remo found tiny purchase points. He lifted. A bystander watching him would have said he was trying to pull the building down into its own cellar. In fact, that was the technique. Remo was not trying to climb the building. That would not work, strangely enough. But by attempting to drag the building down so the open window reached Remo's head height, a miracle happened.
From Remo's point of view, the building actually sank.
In reality, Remo was scaling the building using his fingers and toes.
His head came up to the open casement window, and he stuck his head in.
A stern face greeted him. "If you have bespattered my fine castle with paint, I will never forgive you," said Chiun in his squeakiest register.
And because Remo knew the next step might be slamming the window in his face, he sprang sideways to the next window, rolled in, snapped to his feet and faded off to one side while the Master of Sinanju pulled the other pane shut with a hard bang.
"Too late," Remo said.
Chiun whirled. For an instant Remo believed he had outsmarted his teacher, but Chiun pretended otherwise. He grasped his wrists with his long-nailed hands and the sleeves of his silken teal kimono met, concealing them from view.
"Your hands are filthy. Wash them this instant."
"My plan exactly," Remo said agreeably. "And while I'm at it, my nails look like they could use a good trimming."
Chiun's eyes narrowed to crafty slits, but he made no protest.
Going to the nearest bathroom-there were more than a dozen strategically placed throughout the sixteen-unit complex-Remo closed the door and gave his hands a good scrubbing with pumice soap. That took off the worst of the paint. The rest was ingrained into his skin.
Remo had a technique for that, too. Human skin consisted of a dead outer layer that sloughed and scaled off in the course of normal living. So Remo, after drying his hands, started dry-washing them vigorously.
His hands blurred. They even smoked a little. And into the washbowl tiny flecks of black material began precipitating. It was paint, turned black by the same friction that burned it off the skin of his fingers.
Hands clean, Remo rinsed them under cold tap water, then examined his nails. They were not very long, but could stand a trimming anyway. No sense encouraging Chiun's hopes by being lax.
Reaching into the medicine cabinet, Remo found a pair of nail clippers. They were extra-heavy-duty and custom-made out of drop-forged titanium. Since he now possessed fingernails that could score steel, Remo needed something tougher than the kind of clippers one could buy at K mart.
Carefully Remo began clipping his nails, starting with the smaller, easier ones. He worked from pinkie to thumb on his left hand. Switching hands, he naturally took the heavy clipper in his left hand and started with the thumb, then jumped to the pinkie and worked back from there. By the time he reached the nail he always saved for last-the extrahard, longish right index nail-he had a tiny pile of shavings on the porcelain sink counter that, if swallowed, would kill a rhinoceros.
The long nail was the tough one. If Remo cut it too short, he risked disarming a useful weapon. Through the years Remo had learned to enter locked buildings by scoring window glass with his right index nail. It was a handy tool to have, even if he would never admit this to the master of Sinanju.
Once Remo had inadvertently cut the nail too short, and for a solid month felt as if he had chopped off his right index finger to the knuckle. That was how much that nail was a part of him.
So Remo carefully trimmed the nail back, leaving enough to be useful. The titanium blade sounded like a tiny bolt cutter at work.
The nail came off in a perfect half-moon sliver and joined the tiny pile.
An impatient knock came at the door.
"You are hogging the bathroom," complained Chiun.
"There's others," Remo called back.
The door hammered under an angry fist. "I wish to use that one."
"All right, all right. I'm done," said Remo, sweeping the nail clippings into a wastebasket.
Opening the door, Remo stepped back as the Master of Sinanju hurried in. His eyes went to Remo's hands.
"Show me your hands. Are they clean?"
"Oh, get off it."
Chiun snapped his palms together. "Show me."
Dutifully Remo offered his hands for inspection.
"I feel like I'm back at the orphanage," he grumbled as the Master of Sinanju turned his hands palm up, then down again, scrutinizing the pale skin for paint flecks and under the nails for stubborn grime.
He flinched at what he saw.
"You have cut them!" Chiun squeaked.
"Sue me."
"It is a wonder you do not chop off your fingertips, you pare the nails so cruelly."
"They say if you cut back its branches, a tree will flourish."
"You are not a tree."
"And you are not my father. Get off my nails."
Relinquishing Remo's hands, the Master of Sinanju made a frowning face.
"You are beyond redemption. Now go. I will clean up here."
"I didn't leave a mess. There's nothing to clean up."
"Go, go," said Chiun, shooing Remo from the room.
More than happy to get off so lightly, Remo walked the mazelike corridors of the place that had been home almost as long as any other place in his vagabond existence.
Well, it wasn't so bad sometimes, he thought as he headed down to the first-floor kitchen, where the fresh scent of rice steaming wafted up. He and Chiun had come a long way from the days when, as part of his contract with Harold Smith, the Master of Sinanju was obligated to liquidate Remo should CURE be compromised. Now they were as close as father and son and, while they had their arguments, both loved and respected each other---Remo Chiun more than Chiun Remo. Remo didn't care how long the Master of Sinanju grew his nails. Or how flamboyant the kimono of the day was. All Remo wanted was to be left alone, to dress as he wished. A clean T-shirt and chinos were just fine with him, day in and day out. What he saved in wardrobe he put in shoes-expensive Italian loafers and no socks, thank you very much.
It was a simple life, Remo thought as he walked down the hall, picking up a universal TV remote from a small table. As he passed open doors, he used it to turn on the TV sets that were a fixture in almost every room, one by one.
This way he caught the news as made his way to the kitchen and the alluring scent of rice. Chiun could turn them off later.
Remo reached the stairs when something said by a network newscaster made him stop.
"Amtrak officials say the cause of the deadly derailment is unknown at this time."
He ducked into the room.
"More after this," the newscaster said.
Before the picture faded, Remo noticed the graphic floating beside the anchor's head. It said Amtrak Derailment. There was a digitized picture of a flopped-over Amtrak train in the box.