"Never mind," Remo sighed. "I don't suppose you've seen hide nor hair of Chiun?" he asked Cheeta.
"You mean the man responsible for the glorious fulfillment of my womb?" Cheeta returned.
Remo's eyes went wide. On his last assignment, the Master of Sinanju had achieved a long-held ambition: to meet the Korean anchor. Chiun had been carrying a torch for her since he had first beheld her barracuda face on TV. He had had visions of fulfilling the childless anchorwoman and siring Remo's successor in Sinanju with one stroke. But Cheeta had instead fallen for Remo. Remo, for his part, would rather have eaten sand.
By the time it had all been straightened out, Cheeta and the Master of Sinanju had gone off together. Chiun had returned home silent but contented. Cheeta had returned to the airwaves with news of her ovulatory breakthrough.
Still, Remo refused to believe it. Now he could only sputter, "You mean Chiun is the father?"
"I didn't say that," Cheeta said tartly. "I'm a married woman. In fact, I categorically deny that my husband isn't the father."
"Please, please," Delpha implored. "You're disturbing the spell. The atmosphere of power must not be dispelled by negativity."
"Spell?" asked Cheeta.
"I told you, Delpha's a witch," Remo said. "She's trying to un-hex the Rumpp Tower."
Cheeta Ching walked up to the smoldering hand of glory.
"Is that real? I mean, a real hand?"
"Sure," Remo said brightly. "In fact, it's probably good enough to eat."
"I resent the implication that I'm a cannibal!" Cheeta flared. "I'm a mother-to-be!" Her bloodred nails flashed and curled before her.
Remo backed away. "Hey, it was just a suggestion." He snapped his fingers loudly. "I know! Now that you two have been introduced, why don't you do an interview? Together. Leave me out of it. I'll find Chiun on my own hook."
A cold voice directly behind Remo said, "Look no further, late one."
Remo whirled.
Chiun, Reigning Master of Sinanju, stood in the alley mouth, his face severe, his long-nailed hands obscured by his joined sleeves.
"There you are," said Remo, relief in his voice.
"You are late," Chiun sniffed, drawing himself to his full height.
"Blame it on the disintegrating infrastructure."
"Grandfather!" Cheeta cried, rushing up to the Master of Sinanju.
Chiun's face stiffened. He froze, as if uncertain how to react.
Then, before Remo's astonished eyes, Cheeta Ching, self-styled supreme anchorwoman in the known universe, bowed before him. Twice.
Regally, the Master of Sinanju returned the bow. Once.
"It is good to see you again, grandfather," Cheeta murmured.
"And you, child. The baby quickens?"
"Only due to your greatness," Cheeta returned.
"Am I hearing this?" Remo shouted. "I'm not hearing this! You're not the father, Chiun-are you?"
The wise hazel eyes of the Master of Sinanju looked over to the face of his pupil opaquely, and tracked beyond him.
His hands emerged from his sleeves. One birdlike claw of a hand lifted and curled, gesturing with a bony yellow finger.
"Remo. Who is this mudang I find you with?"
Remo looked over his shoulder. Delpha Rohmer stared back.
"Mudang?" Remo asked Chiun. His Korean was good, but not perfect.
"A white witch," replied Chiun.
"You are very wise to know me for what I am," Delpha intoned.
"He doesn't mean 'white' the way you mean 'white,' " Remo snapped.
"I can see that he is in contact with greater harmonies," Delpha returned. "His aura is perfect."
"Absolutely," Cheeta said. "He helped me unlock my burgeoning womanhood."
"You are both properly respectful," said the Master of Sinanju. His eyes went to Remo's. "Unlike some."
Remo put his hands on his lean hips. "Look. We're here to do a job. Let's do it."
"One moment, Remo. I must examine this artifact." The old Korean strode up to the hand of glory and sniffed the smoke being exuded by its shriveling black fingers.
He looked to Delpha. "The hand of a hanged man?"
Delpha nodded. "I dug it up. It's very old. But there was still enough fat in it to burn."
"That's sick!" Remo said.
"Sick would be to use a woman's hand," Cheeta inserted.
Everyone nodded in agreement except Remo.
"It is potent magic," Delpha said.
"Can it help me get my cameraman back?" Cheeta wondered, circling it. She lifted her minicam to one shoulder and captured the smoking member on tape.
"Don't tell me you nibbled on another one?" Remo asked pointedly.
"Silence, Remo!" Chiun spat. "Do not remind this poor creature of her recent misfortune."
"Misfortune? She's buried alive with her cameraman and she eats him."
"I did not eat my cameraman!" Cheeta blazed. "Whole . . . I just noshed on a piece he wasn't using."
"His leg?"
"He was dead. He wasn't about to jump up and run marathons."
"This is a perfectly reasonable thing, Remo," Chiun inserted. "Now be silent. We must be about our important work."
Delpha lifted welcoming hands. "It is our destiny to work together. The three of us."
Remo told Cheeta, "I guess that leaves you out. Sorry."
"I meant, the three of us who understand the elder wisdom," Delpha added imperiously.
Remo frowned. "What am I-the spear-carrier?"
"No. But you may carry the hand of glory."
"I'm not touching that."
"Remo," Chiun said flatly. "Carry the hand. Come, we will solve this mystery before it blights the entire city."
The three started off, Chiun flanked by the two women. Remo watched them go. He looked down at the smoldering hand of glory.
"Damn," he muttered, stooping to pick it up. "Why do I always end up with the short end of the stick?"
Chapter 7
Randal T. Rumpp had not gotten where he was in life by being timid. He had his brashness to thank for his steady rise to the princedom of Manhattan real estate, and just as surely to blame now that he had plummeted to the sad status of paper billionaire in such a stunningly short time.
He did not understand the freaky thing that had befallen the Rumpp Tower. He dimly understood that he was trapped, as was everyone who had had the misfortune to be caught within its narrow confines when the mysterious event occurred.
What Randal Rumpp did understand was that there had to be some way he could turn the situation to his advantage.
The phones shrilled in his ears so loudly he could barely hear himself think. In other rooms on this floor, they also were clamoring for attention.
Hanging up did no good. So Randal Rumpp, because doing something physical always helped his brain to work better, went around his luxurious, selfportrait-dense office and started taking them off the hook, one at a time.
Once in a while, he would check for a dial tone.
The first time he did this he got a weird voice crying plaintively, "Help! I am trapped in telephone!"
"My ass," said Randal Rumpp, going to the next phone.
"Help me! Help me! Help me!" said another phone. It sounded like the same voice, so Randal gave it a shot.
"You say you're trapped?" he demanded.
"Yes! Help me, American! Please help me!"
"How much?"
"How much what?"
"How much would you pay me if I got you out?" demanded Randal Rumpp, getting right to the point.
"I will pay any price. Honestly."
"Okay, I need three billion bucks."
"Billion with a b?"
"Yes."
"Okay, I do this for you. Three billion."
"Up front."
"I cannot advance any money while I am in telephone," the weird, tinny voice said, reasonably enough.
"I'll settle for half up front," countered Randal Rumpp, who, had he not been so hard-up, would never have wasted time talking to the disembodied voice. But the man sounded hard-up. And vaguely foreign. The real money today was in foreign hands. Maybe this was some wealthy Japanese industrialist, and Randal Rumpp would luck into a killing. It had happened before.