"Master Chiun," Smith went on. "Have you no ideas? This matter is beyond my ability to cope with it."
Chiun stroked his wispy beard, one eye narrowing thoughtfully. "White magic has obviously failed. It is time for yellow magic."
"Yellow?"
"Emperor, I have a certain trunk for situations such as this. Had I known more of this matter I would have brought it with me."
"You require it now?" Smith asked.
"You have it safe, do you not?"
"Yes, along with most of your other trunks."
"It is a sad thing not to be in possession of one's most treasured belongings," Chiun said, voice quavering, "but when one is homeless in a foreign land, one must sacrifice for the good of one's employer."
"I have been in search of a suitable property for you and Remo," Smith said quickly.
"I vote for the Bahamas," Remo chimed in.
"I will sign no contract until this unresolved matter is settled," Chiun said sharply.
"I will have the trunk shipped immediately. Which one is it?"
"The green-and-gold one. And take care, Smith-its contents are very powerful. Allow no lacky to manhandle it."
"The trunk will arrive intact, I promise," said Smith, hanging up without another word.
The Master of Sinanju padded back to his tatami mat. Remo had claimed it. Chiun cleared his throat in warning.
Instead of vacating the mat with alacrity, as was proper, Remo asked a question.
"Why does the green-and-gold trunk sound familiar?"
"Because it is familiar," Chiun sniffed. "Sitter-on-mats-which-are-not-his."
"Huh? Oh, sorry." Remo got up and made way.
The Master of Sinanju settled onto his mat and fixed his hazel eyes on the television screen, his expression expectant.
"Waiting for Cheeta, huh?"
"It should not concern you, offerer-of-false-hopes."
"Are you saying that I fibbed when I told you Smith wanted to be godfather to the brat?"
"I am not saying that."
"Good," Remo said in relief.
"The tone of your lying voice is saying that."
"Bulldookey."
Chiun lifted a gnarled hand. "Silence! Cheeta appears."
In fact, it was the harried face of BCN anchorman Don Cooder that appeared on the TV screen.
"Good evening," he said. "Tonight, all New York is agog as one of its most famous-some say infamous-skyscrapers has reportedly been spectralized."
"Spectralized?" Remo muttered.
"For more on this breaking story, we turn now to our junior anchorwoman, our own fountain of fecundity, Cheeta Ching."
Cooder turned in his chair to face the floating graphic of the Rumpp Tower, which expanded and became the repressed-with-fury face of Cheeta Ching. She was surrounded by ordinary New Yorkers, some dressed for trick-or-treating.
"Dan, I'm standing behind police lines surrounding what may be the Halloween spooktacular of the century." Cheeta stepped aside, disclosing the brassy Rumpp Tower. A scarecrow slipped up behind Cheeta and made a two-fingered rabbit-ears behind her glossy head. Cheeta elbowed him hard, and after he'd doubled over in pain, pushed his head below the camera frame and held it down with one foot.
The other trick-or-treaters moved away with haste.
Cheeta went on with her report, every so often grimacing and jumping slightly as the scarecrow attempted to get out from under her heel.
"Over my shoulder can be seen the Rumpp Tower, where tonight perhaps thousands of residents and office workers are trapped by the latest gambit in the titanic financial struggle between Randal T. Rumpp and his legion of creditors."
Don Cooder jumped in. "Cheeta. What exactly has happened to the Tower? We can see it there, plain as day. Looks fine. What's the story?"
"The story, Don, is that Randal Rumpp is claiming to have turned his prime architectural trophy into an insubstantial asset. It is literally untouchable."
"I understand, Cheeta, that you've spoken with Rumpp this evening."
"That's right, Don, I-"
"Any footage?"
Cheeta Ching's face colored. Her bloodred lips thinned, and her black eyes snapped with fury. She muttered something under her breath that, out of the millions watching the broadcast, perhaps only Remo and Chiun, who both understood Korean, picked up on.
"Did she just call him a bastard?" Remo asked Chiun.
"Hush!"
Cheeta went on. "Don, whatever dark forces are at work here, obviously it affects videotape. My exclusive interview was ruined."
"Too bad."
Cheeta smiled through set teeth. A guttural fragment of sound emerged, too.
Remo asked, "Did she just call him a prick in Korean?"
"Be still!"
"But," Cheeta added, lifting a notebook into camera range, "I can quote precisely several of the things Rumpp had to say." She began reading off the pad. "According to the real-estate developer himself, the Rumpp Tower has been 'spectralized.' That is, made insubstantial to human touch. Rumpp declined to explain why he had resorted to this unique approach to protecting his assets from seizure, but it's widely believed in banking circles that this is the last, desperate act of a desperate man, a man who, only a decade ago-"
"That's fine, Cheeta," Don Cooder cut in, "but we have a follow-up report to get to."
"But-"
The angry face of Cheeta Ching winked out and Don Cooder turned to face his audience, saying,
"Spectralization. What is it? Can it happen to your home? Here with a full report is BCN science editor, Frank Feldmeyer."
The Master of Sinanju stabbed the OFF switch angrily.
"Hey, I wanted to see that report!" Remo protested.
"There is a saloon in the lower regions of this building," Chiun said. "I am certain if you cross his palm with silver, the saloonkeeper will oblige you."
"Crap," said Remo, turning on the TV again. Chiun retreated to the dresser and seized the remote. He stabbed the button.
A competing newscaster appeared. The anchor was explaining, as if it were a perfectly ordinary occurrence, how the Rumpp Tower had been "dematerialized."
Remo switched back to BCN.
Chiun ran the channel selector to another broadcast.
This particular anchor, in referring to the Rumpp Tower, called it "owl-blasted."
Remo and Chiun stopped their struggle for television supremacy and looked at one another.
"Owl-blasted?" they said. They began paying attention to the screen, as the camera pulled back and no other than Delpha Rohmer was revealed seated beside the boyish anchor.
"Here with exclusive footage of the apparent haunting is Delpha Rohmer, official witch of Salem, Massachusetts," said the anchor.
"Perfect," Remo groused.
"First, Miss Rohmer," said the anchor, "can you explain the so-called 'event' on Fifth Avenue?"
Delpha Rohmer parted her scarlet lips in a dry, empty smile. Her eye shadow had been replenished. It was an unappetizing color similar to canned mushroom soup.
"It is not an event," she said in a vaguely sinister monotone. "It is the sign of the second coming of Baphomet, the Great Horned One. Soon all Fifth Avenue, then all of Manhattan, will become as the Rumpp Tower. More innocents will slip into the earth to roast in Baphomet's pitiless hellfires."
"You're not serious?"
Delpha's mushroom-hued lids settled, like an alligator's inner eye membrane. "It will be the fate of all who do not practice the craft of Wicca to fall into the Horned One's toils. Only by embracing the first religion can womankind be saved."
"What about men?" Remo asked the picture tube.
"What about men?" the anchor asked Delpha.
"Men," retorted Delpha Rohmer, "can be saved only by wise women. If the women out in the audience wish to be saved, or desire to succor their menfolk . . ."
"Here it comes," Remo said.
"I have a toll-free number they may call for information," Delpha finished.