"Only if you don't follow instructions. You work for Uncle Sam now."
Remo decided to read the paper in the lobby, seeing as the IRS agents promised to be almost as entertaining as Calvin and Hobbes.
An agent sauntered over and said, "No loitering in this lobby."
"I'm registered," Remo pointed out.
The agent flashed his badge and said, "Agency rules. Sorry."
"You guys are going to bankrupt this place with that attitude."
"I don't make the rules."
"I know. You just jam them down people's throats."
Remo got up and started for the elevator. He reached it a step behind a thick-necked man in a John Travolta ensemble.
The door opened and Remo got on. So did "Travolta."
"I thought Halloween was yesterday," Remo remarked dryly.
The man looked at the elevator indicator board and said nothing.
"Got a match?" Remo asked. The man looked down at his shoes. One hand-his right-rose slightly . . . and Remo became aware that the man was armed. He was no IRS agent. That was for sure.
In fact, he didn't even smell like an American. Remo's senses had been trained to the peak of perfection. But that was only the first step. Chiun had taught him to utilize his heightened senses in ways Remo himself still found amazing. One exercise involved guessing people's nationalities by their personal scents.
It was not as bizarre as it sounded. Personal scents were a mixture of hygiene, diet, and other organic constants. Diet was the predominate determinate, however.
The man in the elevator smelled of black bread and borscht.
A Russian.
In itself, it was not unusual to find a Russian staying at the Rumpp Regis. It was a four-star hotel. Its clientele probably included citizens from Canada to Tongo.
Still, an armed Russian was unusual.
When the elevator stopped at the fourteenth floor and the Russian got off, Remo kept the door from closing again with the toe of an Italian loafer and stepped out into the lobby.
He hung back, staying close to the walls, as he followed the Russian's distinctive scent to a room at the end of one corridor. The man knocked, spoke a thick word that sounded to Remo like "shit," and was let in.
Remo noted the room number and went to a corridor phone. He called his own room.
"Chiun. We got Russians."
"Turn on the lights and they will scurry away," said Chiun unconcernedly.
"I think this may be connected to the Krahseevah. Smith said we may have another Rumpp Tower here."
"He did?" Chiun squeaked. "You did not not tell me of this! I must make preparations!
"Wait a minute!" The phone clicked in Remo's ear.
"Damn," Remo said, racing to the elevators.
The doors opened on a cage going up. Remo ignored it.
The next elevator was going down. Remo knew that because, when the doors opened, there stood the Master of Sinanju, standing before his green-and-gold trunk, wearing a ceremonial white stovepipe hat.
"Little Father, wait!"
From up one sleeve, the Master of Sinanju withdrew the strange feathered wind instrument and brought it to his lips.
It made a sound that paralyzed Remo's supersensitive eardrums long enough for Chiun to stab the door's CLOSE button. It shut in Remo's unhappy face.
"Damn," Remo said again, racing for the stairs.
When he got to the lobby, the Master of Sinanju had placed the trunk in the center of the ornate lobby floor. He flung it open.
An IRS revenue collector came over to lodge a protest and found himself being escorted to the revolving doors by the pressure of two long-nailed fingers on his right elbow. The incredulous look on his heavy, muscular face-revenue collectors, unlike IRS agents, are chosen for their brawn, not their brains-was that of a man who has been seized by a giant tarantula. He was placed inside, and the door started revolving with him in it. Then it stopped abruptly, bumping his nose hard.
Nothing the man could do could unstick the revolving door. He was trapped. He looked almost relieved about it.
Remo warned, "Chiun! That's only going to create more trouble."
"Stand back," Chiun said, shrugging his kimono sleeves back, exposing spindly arms like bony, tanned leather. He dipped into his trunk and extracted with one hand a bamboo wand decorated with silver bells and with the other a drum.
Remo put his hands on his hips. "Let me guess. You're going to drive off the evil spirits with those."
"No," corrected Chiun. "We are going to drive away the evil spirits with these tokens. You may beat the chang-gu drum, since it requires no skill or cadence."
"I am not beating any freaking drum. I told you, we got Russians. I think something is about to break."
"Yes. Our contract, if we do not give Smith proper service. You will beat the drum."
"Will you listen to me if I go along?" Remo asked in a heated voice.
"Possibly."
Remo took the drum. He wrapped one arm around it and began slapping the tight skin with his palm.
"I feel like an idiot!" he protested loudly over the noise.
The Master of Sinanju pretended not to hear him. Remo paused and then began, "Listen-"
Chiun flared, "Keep drumming. It is important. Relatively."
Chiun lifted his wand and shook it. His head rocking from side to side and threatening to dislodge his stovepipe hat, which was tied about his wispy chin by a string, he began to move about the lobby, chanting and making other noises that brought to mind a tomcat caught in the rinse cycle.
Frowning, Remo woodenly beat the drum. With any luck, he thought, this is the five-minute exorcism.
In the middle of all this, Yuli Batenin returned from having breakfast in the hotel restaurant, Soup de Rumpp.
Chapter 27
By eleven o'clock, Randal Rumpp had figured out that he was being stonewalled.
The mayor's office wasn't returning his calls. The Planning Commission wasn't returning his calls. No one was returning his calls.
Randal Rumpp's office suite included several televisions sets in elegant cabinets, and assorted sound systems. All useless in the blacked-out skyscraper.
"I can't stand this!" he complained. "I'm the lead story on every broadcast, and I'm missing everything. Dorma!"
"Yes, Mr. Rumpp?"
"Go down to the lobby and get me a newspaper."
"But Mr. Rumpp. The only papers would be yesterday's."
"Then get me yesterday's paper. The Post, not the Times. I gotta read something. This is driving me bugnuts."
"But the mob . . ."
Randal Rumpp's voice dropped to a throaty growl.
"Dorma, can the mob fire you?"
"No, Mr. Rumpp."
"Think the mob will hire you if I fire you?"
"No, Mr. Rumpp."
"Then go fetch, Chuck."
"Yes, Mr. Rumpp," said Dorma Wormser meekly.
She slunk away, slipping through one of the secret exits and closing it after her.
"Money always talks," said Randal Rumpp confidently. "She'll probably break the stair-climbing record, if there is one. Gotta remember to stiff her for the cost of the paper."
But when eleven o'clock became twelve-thirty and Dorma Wormser still hadn't returned, Randal Rumpp was forced to conclude that one of two things had happened: either she had deserted him, or she had been torn apart by the unruly mob below.
He privately hoped it was the latter. Dorma was single. He could probably get away with holding on to her last paycheck.
But that still left him out of touch. And Randal Rumpp hated to be out of touch. He roamed the twenty-fourth floor looking for a transistor radio. He doubted that he'd find one, inasmuch as personal property that cheap was banned from Rumpp Organization work space, but one never knew. Employees could be treacherous.
The ringing cellular sent him racing back to his office.
"Yes," he said, out of breath.