"I am sorry. You must release me first."
"What are you, some kind of telephone genie? I pop the cork, and you give me three wishes?"
"Three billions. That is our agreement."
"Get lost," said Randal Rumpp, knowing a scam when he smelled one.
The cacophony of office phones having fallen silent, he moved on to his executive assistant's office.
"Dorma, I want every phone on this floor off the hook. Now."
The woman sat frozen at her desk, eyes staring straight ahead in the classic thousand-yard stare. They were misting over. She held a white linen handkerchief before her, as if it were too heavy to raise to her eyes or let fall to her lap.
"Did you hear me?"
"They . . . sank . . . without a trace . . . ." she moaned.
"How would you like to sink without a trace?" suggested Randal Rumpp, who boasted in his autobiography that he hired women to staff his empire because he felt they were just as capable as men. He neglected to mention that they also worked a third more cheaply and were twice as easy to intimidate as men.
"I . . . don't . . . care. . . ." Dorma whispered eerily.
"Then I'll do it myself," Rumpp snapped.
It took a while. Every so often he heard the weird foreign voice crying out from the receiver's diaphragm, like a lost soul. He slammed those phones harder than the others.
By the time the floor had fallen silent, the sun was setting. It was then and only then that Randal Rumpp realized the electricity was off. It had not been off before. The computers had been running. Now their screens were dim to the point of grayness.
Whatever had happened, the electricity was no longer flowing through the building's wiring.
He made a mental note to sue the contractor who had put in the wiring, and Con Ed as well. If he sued enough people, he was bound to recoup enough of his losses to bounce back.
Randal Rumpp brushed past his executive assistant and plunked himself down behind his massive desk. He decided to play a hunch.
There was one cellular phone in the office. It had not gone crazy like the others. He picked it up, extended the antenna, and stabbed out the number of the President of Chemical Percolators Hoboken, his chief creditor.
"Mr. Longstreet's office," a crisp voice announced.
"Randal Rumpp calling."
He was put through without another word.
"Alan? Randal here. By any chance have you heard about what's going on up here in the Rumpp Tower?"
"The TV is full of it. I don't understand. What is going on? Are you all right?"
"Never felt better. Listen, I don't appreciate being foreclosed on."
"The Tower was our collateral on the Shangri-Rumpp deal, and we had to call in the note. We had no choice."
"And neither did I."
"Beg pardon?"
"You can't seize a building you can't touch," Randal Rumpp said flatly, looking at his face reflected in his buffed and polished fingernails.
"Are you saying you're responsible for this . . . this Halloween prank?"
"No prank, Chuck. The Rumpp Tower is Randal Rumpp's top tangible asset. Now it's been converted into an intangible asset. Never play against a born winner. Chumps like you always lose."
At that Randal Rumpp hung up, smiling a simpering smile that could have belonged to a turn-of-the-century chorus girl.
"That ought to tangle up their balance sheets while I formulate my next move."
The trouble was, Randal Rumpp didn't have a next move. In fact, he still didn't know what the heck was going on. But in the game of life, he knew, he who talks big and bluffs high usually walks away with the jackpot.
And since he was a virtual untouchable in his own tower, he might as well pull on people's chains a little more.
"Get me BCN," he called into the next room.
"How? The phone's are all dead."
"Never mind. I'll do it myself." He stabbed out a number on his cellular and identified himself to the BCN switchboard. He was put through to the news director at once.
"Let me speak with Don Cooder."
"He's covering the Lincoln Tunnel collapse."
"Really?" said Randal. "It collapsed, huh? Maybe I'll rebuild it. How about the baby-maker-what's her name?"
"Cheeta Ching?"
"That's the one. Put her on. Tell her Randal Rumpp is offering her an exclusive in the Rumpp Tower spectacular."
"Spectacular?"
"You are covering this story, aren't you?"
"As a matter of fact, Miss Ching is down on Fifth Avenue now."
"Great. Tell her to meet me in the lobby in five minutes."
"But-"
Randal Rumpp hung up. He went to a wall mirror and primped his hair, straightening his fire-engine-red Hermes tie. He had to duck and twist to see himself clearly, inasmuch as he had had his last name etched vertically into the mirror surface. It was an antique, for which he had overpaid. But with his name on it, it was sure to fetch a princely sum when he got around to selling it.
"I look great," he said. "A winner."
As he walked past his secretary he said, "If anyone wants me I'll be down in the lobby, schmoozing with the media."
The woman looked up, pale and drawn. "There are no media in the lobby."
"There will be by the time I get down there," Randal Rumpp said confidently.
It was a prediction that proved true only because the elevators had gone dead. Randal Rumpp began the slow, tortuous stairwell descent to the lobby, vowing that when things got back to normal he would have a greased brass firepole installed in a masonry column, so if this ever happened again he could zip down to the lobby, just like Adam West.
Chapter 8
Up close, the Rumpp Tower looked more charcoal than bronze. Dying sunlight made it smolder, as if fires lurked beneath its opaque surface.
Remo looked around. Fifth Avenue was deserted in both directions for several blocks. It was a strange sight. But it enabled them to work unchallenged.
"He stepped into the lobby and just fell out of sight," Cheeta was explaining.
"Ridiculous," snorted Remo.
"Supernatural," said Delpha.
"I saw it all," added Chiun. "From my place of vantage. Before him, a lowly fireman was pulled down to a like fate."
Cheeta Ching looked startled. "You were here before, Grandfather?"
"In my secret capacity, I was studying the fate that has befallen this mighty but hideous structure."
"Was there nothing you could have done?" Cheeta asked, to Remo's relief. She hadn't seemed to pick up on Chiun's broad hint that he worked for someone important.
"Alas, no," said Chiun. "For when confronted with the unknown, the first rule of Sinanju is to observe, lest one become ensnared along with lesser mortals."
"Very wise," said Delpha.
"That's why I made my cameraman go in ahead of me," Cheeta said.
"You sent your cameraman in to his death?" Remo blurted.
"He is not dead," Delpha intoned, snatching the hand of glory from Remo. "He has merely gone to another realm."
"Bull! There's gotta be a scientific explanation for what's happening here."
"Self-blind science cannot explain all," Delpha insisted.
"Sure it can."
"Then why do men have nipples?"
That stumped Remo. While he was pondering the imponderable mystery, Cheeta snapped her fingers and offered a theory of her own.
"I know! It's a dimensional rift opening up."
"Huh?"
"Our planet is intersecting with a parallel dimension, causing an exchange of realities."
"Bull!" Remo exploded.
Chiun cut in. "Silence! Speak, child. Tell us more."
"It's just a theory," Cheeta said slowly, "but I think the tower is slowly entering the Fifth Dimension, or a parallel reality."