"How is that different from cocaine use, or gourmets who eat wild mushrooms, or puffer fish, which if improperly prepared can kill?"
"I still don't get it."
"That is because you have had a proper upbringing. But the President is very concerned. He has not said so in any specific way, but I believe we and CURE are on probation. As you know, there is talk of folding the CIA into the State Department, which would save five billion taxpayer dollars. Our budget is much greater than that. He is looking at us closely."
"Do tell."
"We must show results, Remo. I am counting on you."
"We'll do our best. Talk to you tomorrow."
Remo hung up and returned to his spot on the rug.
"You heard every word, didn't you?" he asked Chiun.
"I do not eavesdrop."
"You don't have to. You have the ears of a fox."
Chiun raised a correcting finger. "I have the ears of an owl. A fox's ears are ugly."
"Thrush Limburger is definitely coming here. He's supposed to have the whole thing figured out."
"Why are you telling me things I already know?"
"I ask myself that question all the time. Look, I know you're a Limburger fan-God knows why-but remember, we're on a secret mission."
"To save America from its latest vice, bug eating. What would this country do without us to save it from itself?"
"Dry up and blow away like the Roman Empire, I guess." Remo started for the door, saying, "I'll see you in the morning."
"Remember to shower."
At the door, Remo turned. "Why do you say that?"
"You reek of that woman."
Remo sniffed his arm. The scent of Nalini was on the spot on his arm where she touched him. It brought a smile to his face. "And here I thought it was just her memory haunting me."
"Pah," said Chiun.
In his room, Remo stripped the bed. He couldn't sleep on most beds anymore. At home, a reed mat on the floor was all the bed he needed. This mattress was too lumpy. So he laid the sheet on the rug, stripped to his underwear, and lay down.
He couldn't sleep. He kept thinking of Nalini. He had liked her smile. He thought it was the tantalizing memory keeping him awake, when he remembered the perfume on his arm. That was what was keeping him awake.
Remo washed his arms in soap and hot water, which got rid of most of the scent. But not all of it. He threw up a window which let in cool air and a sound like an adenoidally challenged gander.
Chiun snored in the next room. He had left his window open too.
Remo willed out the sound, then all sounds, and after a last lingering recollection of Nalini's low, musical voice, he fell into a deep sleep.
Somewhere past three A.M., Remo awoke. Something was crawling along his arm and his first thought was roach.
Remo gave his arm a shake, and he heard something tick against the wall. He went back to sleep. Ten minutes later, the sensitive hairs on his forearm triggered an alarm, and this time he slapped the insect with his fingers, killing it.
Then he flicked the dead thing off, rolled over, and fell into a slumber that lasted until the break of dawn and the first raucous cries of bluejays.
He dreamed of Nalini. In his dream, he was a teenager again, before CURE, before the electric chair that hadn't worked had catapulted patrolman Remo Williams into his new life as the heir apparent to the House of Sinanju.
He and Nalini were walking down lower Broad Street in Newark, New Jersey, where he had grown up.
They were eating ice cream cones, and even in sleep, Remo tasted his because he had not eaten an ice cream cone or a dairy product or most foods since he had come to Sinanju, the sun source of the martial arts. His cone was cherry vanilla. Nalini's was chocolate fudge. He was looking at her's and wondering if he offered her a taste of his cone, would she return the favor.
They turned a corner and coming up it was Sister Mary Margaret, a wraith in black-and-white. Her eyes were steely. And she was carrying a steel ruler which she flicked. Out snapped a straight razor that was rusty with dried blood.
Remo pulled Nalini back and they got three blocks before the Master of Sinanju appeared, blocking their path.
His yellow hands came out of the sleeves of his bone white kimono and the nails attached to the ends of his fingers were long and curved and also the color of bone.
The Master of Sinanju bared his teeth like an enraged tiger, and from between his tiny white teeth came a sibilant hissing.
Remo woke up tasting cherry ice cream and smelling Nalini's perfume. He found himself looking forward to seeing her again. It had been a long time since he had looked forward to seeing a woman. A long time.
It was one of the downsides of Sinanju that while Remo had through correct breathing, stringent diet, and exercise techniques become absolute master of every cell in his body, and a literal killing machine, the techniques that cover the sexual act were focused on reducing the opposite sex to quivering jelly, which was nice, for the express purpose of fathering children, which was not currently on Remo's agenda. Sinanju sex techniques were so rigid and foolproof that no woman could resist them, and the practitioner, in this case Remo, might as well be wiring up a car stereo for all the pleasure he got out of it.
As a consequence, Remo had more and more come to enjoy sex less and less.
But he found himself humming as he dressed while waiting until Chiun's honking snores softened to a intermittent snuffle, and then knocked on his door.
"Rise and shine, Little Father. It's the beginning of a new day."
"What is good about that?" said Chiun.
"For one thing, Thrush Limburger's coming to town. And he knows when you've been naughty or nice."
"And I know when you have not showered. I am not emerging from this room until you do."
"Damn," said Remo. And the faint scent of Nalini came to his nose again. "Give me ten,"' he told the Master of Sinanju, ducking back into his room.
Remo hit the bathroom and turned on the shower, preparatory to taking off his clothes.
He got a metallic groan, a driblet of cold water, and the pipe groan resumed, without so much as a drop of water to make up for all the laborious racket.
"Perfect," Remo grumbled.
He called the front desk.
"What happened to my shower?"
"This happens from time to time. It's the drought."
"When will it come back on?"
"We never know," the desk man said.
Remo went out and said to Chiun, "Why didn't you tell me there's no shower water?"
"I had bath water. I took a wonderful bath."
"Well, you took my shower too, because you must have used up the last of the water."
"Now you are blaming me because you smell like a Hindu."
"I do not smell like a Hindu. Look, let's just have breakfast. Maybe there'll be water after we eat."
"I will not be seen in public with one who smells of the Ganges," said Chiun, flouncing off.
Remo let him go. He wasn't that hungry to begin with. He got into his car and drove into Ukiah, thinking he'd look up the local coroner. Maybe he'd have an empty slab and a hose Remo could borrow for a few hours.
Although the more he thought of it, the more Remo liked having Nalini's scent on him. Maybe he'd hold on to it awhile, just to annoy Chiun. Then again, maybe he'd look up Nalini and ask for a booster shot.
Chapter 10
Remo learned by asking around that the Ukiah coroner was also the local undertaker and that brought him to the town's sole funeral parlor. The name over the door was Esterquest and Son. Remo went in.
A properly funereal-faced man greeted him and said, "I do not believe we are waking anyone today."
"I'm looking for the coroner," said Remo.
"Mr. Esterquest is quite busy."
Remo flashed a CDC ID card and said, "Federal agent. I gotta see him. It's about this HELP problem."