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But the door did not open. His voice did not come again.

Behind the wheel, Cody Custer looked at his watch.

Someone shouted, "What's keeping him?"

"Probably in the john," Cody thought to himself. "But he picked a hell of a time for it." He turned on his radio. From the local station normally broadcasting The Thrush Limburger Show, there was only low static.

He cued up the announcement cassette again, louder this time, and leaned close to the radio speaker to see if Thrush's mike picked it up. It didn't.

They gave Thrush Limburger three more minutes, then someone walked up and knocked on the door.

There was no answer.

Finally, Cody Custer came out with the key to the door. He unlocked it, threw it open, and climbed in.

There was the miniature soundproof broadcasting booth. There was Limburger's microphone, his personal computer, his size fifty-seven coat draped over his big chair.

But there was no Thrush Limburger.

He was not in the john or in his sleeping cubicle or kitchenette.

He wasn't anywhere.

Cody Custer didn't have time to be shocked or frantic or anything. He poked his head out of the door and cameras clicked and mikes were thrust in his face.

"Thrush Limburger is missing!" he shouted. "Somebody call the police."

Pandemonium broke loose. Everyone wanted a shot at the empty microphone.

"I knew this would happen," a reporter crowed. "That bag of wind finally broke open and nothing came out."

There was a scramble for cellular phones.

From under his coat, Senator Ned J. Clancy pulled one of his own. It had been hanging from a hook sewn into the double-strength lining of his coat. He spoke in low careful phrases. When he was finished, he restored the unit to its hook, exactly where a pistol would be hidden in a shoulder holster.

"I have an important announcement to make," he bellowed.

"Senator Clancy has an announcement," repeated his chief aide.

"Senator Clancy is giving a press conference right now," added another.

The word spread fast. It passed from mouth to mouth.

And suddenly Senator Ned J. Clancy was exactly where he wanted to be-in the calm eye of a media hurricane.

"I have just been in consultation with my aides in Washington," he said, his voice steady as a rock, "who have just drafted in my name a bill that I will personally introduce into the Senate that will mandate research into the causes of, and provide free medical care for sufferers of Human Environmental Liability Paradox, a terrible scourge that threatens all humanity, possibly the worst health threat ever faced by middle-class America. I know my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will join me in supporting this important legislation."

"What caused you to change your mind, Senator?" a reporter demanded.

"I did not change my mind, I have been working quietly toward this end for some weeks now, and only wished to announce it at the proper moment."

"How are you going to fund the HELP bill, Senator?" Jane Goodwoman called out.

Clancy smiled boozily. "With a value-added tax on the sale of condoms."

Some reporters actually tucked their mikes and notepads under their arms and broke out into polite applause. They would have cheered, but their mouths were full of lobster salad.

"What do you have to say about the disappearance of Thrush Limburger, Senator?"

"My heart goes out to his family-if he has one."

And so the disappearance of Thrush Limburger became an instant page three item. Senator Clancy's proposed HELP bill led the evening newscasts and was destined to be tomorrow's headline.

At the edge of the swarm of reporters, Cody Custer tried to tell any reporter who would listen, "I think he was kidnapped. I think Thrush was abducted by his political enemies."

He was ignored. He was laughed at. Except by those who sneered.

"Everybody knew Limburger would pull something like this once his ratings started to fall," Jane Goodwoman spat, lobster salad fragments spraying from her rubbery mouth.

And even Cody Custer began to wonder if the conventional wisdom had been right all along.

There was no other reasonable explanation.

Chapter 12

Remo stopped by the front desk before returning to his bungalow.

"Water back on?" he asked the desk clerk, who held his red and tender fingers in the air as if afraid to touch hard objects with them.

"Not yet."

"Damn."

"Sorry."

"Not as sorry as you will be if I don't shower soon," Remo said.

"The drought is out of our control, sir."

"Remember my friend with the fast fingers?"

The desk clerk dropped his tender hand under the counter where it would be safe. "Indelibly."

"He wants me to shower more than anything in the world."

"More than he wants rice?"

Remo nodded soberly. "More than rice."

"I might be able to scare up enough water for a bath."

"Start scaring."

"It'll take a while for the ice to melt, though."

"I'll be in my room counting the minutes," said Remo, stepping out into the cool California air. He glanced up the road, but the Master of Sinanju was nowhere in sight.

"Let him play games if he wants to," muttered Remo, going in and turning on the TV.

He got the top of the hour CNN News.

"In Peoria, Illinois, authorities have just announced that Dr. Mordaunt Gregorian, self-styled thanatologist, has just assisted in his twenty-eighth suicide. The victim, forty-seven-year-old Penelope Grimm, was suffering from a severe vaginal yeast infection easily cured with an over-the-counter prescription. Unfortunately, the woman's Christian Scientist beliefs forbid their use. Asked to comment on his latest foray into medicide, as the practice of doctor-assisted suicide has come to be called, Dr. Gregorian said, 'This is a gigantic step forward for the medical community and for women, who no longer need to be terminally ill in order to end their suffering. My toll-free death-line number is-' "

"Damn," said Remo, grabbing up the telephone. He thumbed the 1 button. Relays clicked.

Harold Smith answered, "Yes?"

"It's me and I have a problem."

Smith's voice tensed up. "What is it?"

"I'm stuck in California when I should be in Peoria."

"What is happening in Peoria?"

"Dr. Doom just executed another sick woman. This time, she wasn't even terminal."

"I have heard that report. It is very disturbing. This man seems determined to test the euthanasia laws in every state in the union."

"It's sick, and I should be doing something about it, except I'm stuck here, dodging press and politicians and wasting my freaking time."

"One moment, Remo. I seem to have left the radio on."

In the background, Remo heard a hiss of static. It went away. Smith's voice returned, sounding faintly perturbed.

"Something must have happened to the feed for the Thrush Limburger radio show."

"Maybe that hippo sat on it," Remo growled.

"Remo, why are you in such a foul mood?"

"From the top, I can't shower because there's no freaking water; because I can't shower, Chiun won't have anything to do with me; and I can't do my job because Nirvana West is crawling with political freeloaders and media dips."

"You have made no progress?"

"I talked to the local coroner. One of the few sane people I've come across out here. He can't make any sense of it, either."

"Then you've learned nothing?"

"No." Remo was looking at the TV and said, "Hold the phone." He grabbed the remote and brought up the sound.

"What is it, Remo?"

"CNN just flashed Thrush Limburger's fat face."

"Thrush Limburger," the newscaster was saying, "had no sooner pulled into Nirvana West when it was discovered that the popular radio and TV personality was no longer on board his broadcast van. When questioned, his driver and personal assistant, Cody Custer, claimed that Limburger had been abducted en route by members of the California Highway Patrol."