She tried rolling over. It was an effort.
"Imelda! Bring me my healing crystals. Quick!"
But the healing crystals failed to work after her trusted Philippina maid had rubbed them up and down her bumpy spine.
"I will call doctor, Miss Squirrelly."
"No way. Doctors are old-fashioned."
"But you cannot get out of the bed."
"It'll pass. It's probably just a crick from the cold. Close all the windows and get a good fire going. That'll warm up my wise old bones."
"I think that is a good idea," Imelda said, replacing the covers.
"Good."
"Heat is good for arthritis."
"Arthritis?"
"My poor mother had it just like you got it, Miss Squirrelly. On damp mornings she could not even turn over."
"Arthritis! It can't be. I eat smart. I do my yoga. And I'm a Taurus."
"You are not a young woman anymore."
And the maid slipped from the room to start the great fireplace going.
Squirrelly Chicane lay on her pink silk sheets, her disordered mop of red hair on the pink satin pillow, and stared at the pink ceiling with troubled blue eyes.
"I'm sixty and I'm falling apart," she moaned. "Why me? Why now?"
Chapter 8
At LAX, Lobsang Drom and Kula the Mongol looked to Remo Williams with expectation writ large on their faces.
"Which way lies the Bunji Lama, White Tiger?" asked Kula.
"What are you looking at me for?" Remo replied.
"This is your land," said Kula. "Do you not know your own neighbors?"
"We just crossed the entire freaking country."
"We must consult another oracle," announced Chiun.
They looked around the airport. Video monitors were mounted at several locations.
"But which one?" asked Lobsang. "There are so many."
"We will each seek the answer, and good fortune smile upon him who discovers the truth first," proclaimed Chiun.
Kula and Lobsang stood before different monitors, attracting rude stares.
"Quick, Remo!" Chiun urged. "We must discover where Squirrelly Chicane lives, or I will forfeit my Mongol gold!"
"Couldn't you have thought of that before we left?"
"What is a pilgrimage without uncertainty?"
"Over with quicker," said Remo. "Look, let's call Smith. He's got every useless piece of trivia that ever was stored on those computers of his."
"No, not Smith."
"Why not?"
"If you ask Smith for Squirrelly Chicane's address, he will want to know why you wish this knowledge. I do not want him to know that I am sunlighting. "
Remo sighed. "The word is 'moonlighting.' And have it your way."
Chiun clapped his hands abruptly. "Remo has had a revelation," he called out. "We must do as he says."
The others returned and regarded Remo with narrowed eyes.
"I say we rent a car to start," said Remo.
Reluctantly Kula and Lobsang followed Remo and Chiun to a car-rental counter. Seeing that it was staffed by a woman, Kula said suddenly, "I demand the honor of renting the vehicle that will transport us to our destiny."
When no one else claimed the honor, Kula whispered, "Remo, teach me the honeyed words American men use to impress their women with their virility and yaks. I wish to practice wooing your women so that when America writhes under our merciful heel, no woman will go unsatisfied."
" 'I have herpes' is a pretty arresting opening line," said Remo.
Purposefully Kula marched up to the counter and, slapping down his gold card, announced, "I am Kula the Mongol, owner of many yaks. I also have herpes in plenty, unlike your weak American men."
A minute later Kula came back with the rental keys in his hand and a broad smile on his face.
"She was very impressed. Her face paled in surprise, and her eyes went exceedingly round in her head."
"Would I steer you wrong?" said Remo.
The rental had a cellular phone, and once they were in traffic, Remo dialed directory assistance, breathing through his mouth because the smell emanating from the old Bunji Lama's trunk in the seat beside him hadn't improved any. Opening the windows didn't help, either. The stench of pollution smelled almost as bad.
"Give me the numbers of the Hollywood tour-bus services," he asked. "All of them."
"Do you have a pencil handy?" asked the operator.
"Don't need one," said Remo, and held up the phone so the Master of Sinanju could absorb the numbers when they emerged from the receiver.
One by one Chiun repeated the telephone numbers back to Remo, who then dialed and asked whoever answered, "Does your tour go by Squirrelly Chicane's place?"
When he got a yes, Remo asked for the tour company address and they drove there.
They were in luck. As soon as they pulled up, a tour bus was pulling out, and Remo got behind it.
The bus led them to the seaside community of Malibu, and they listened for the amplified voice of the driver to announce Squirrelly Chicane's residence.
Over the sound of the bus's engine, the driver started to say, "And just up the road ahead is the home of the multitalented Squirrelly-"
The caterwauling of an ambulance overtook them, forcing Remo to pull over. The bus got out of the way, too, and the white-and-orange ambulance roared up the road marked Private.
"Uh-oh," said Remo.
"What is it?" asked Lobsang, his voice stricken. "What means that awful sound?"
"It is an ambulance," explained Chiun, tight of voice. "In this land it serves but two purposes-to fetch the sick to a doctor and to carry off the dead."
"It is going to the place where the Bunji Lama dwells," muttered Kula uneasily.
Lobsang swallowed hard. "If she has died, we must begin the search anew."
"Quickly, Remo!" squeaked Chiun. "We must save the Bunji Lama from death, else our quest will go on for years to come."
And Remo, trying to keep the dead smell of the old Bunji Lama out of his lungs, floored the accelerator.
SQUIRRELLY CHICANE LAY on a throw rug before her environmentally correct fireplace with her eyes closed, trying to align her chakras. Maybe if she got there lined up, her spine would fall into place. It was a good theory and it might have worked, but for some reason she was seeing double. Even with her eyes closed. Maybe it was the bhang.
She opened her eyes. She was still seeing double. The flames were dancing in stereo just inches away from her pink nailed toes. Their crackling was as loud as a California brushfire.
"This is great bhang," she said aloud. Everything was repeated, from her twenty-no, make that forty-toes, to her various Obies, Tonys, Oscars, Emmys and Grammys ranked upon the mantelpiece. She tried to remember how many Oscars she had won. Three, or was it four? It was hard to tell. She kept spares in every home she owned, from her Parisian pied-a-terre to her London flat.
She lay back, her vertebrae popping audibly with her every move.
"Maybe I should try a chiropractor," she told the high, white ceiling.
The phone rang. Imelda immediately brought it in and held the receiver to her face so Squirrelly needn't sit up and risk dislocating her spine.
"Hello?" she said through gritted capped teeth.
A low, ingratiating voice said, "Hello. How's my favorite sixty-year-old nymphet?"
"Warren! You remembered my birthday! How sweet."
"How could I forget?" The pause on the line was awkward. "So, now that you're sixty, wanna make it with me?"
"Warren! For God sakes, I'm your sister!"
"Yeah, but you're the only actress left in Hollywood I haven't slept with."
"Sue me, you satyr."
"Is that a no?"
"Yes."
"Is that a yes?"
"No."
"So, you'll think about it?"
"Hang up, Imelda," said Squirrelly, pulling away from the phone.
Imelda replaced the cordless phone on its base and left the room.
"And people think I'm a bit flipped out," muttered Squirrelly, who suddenly realized that she had sat up in surprise during the conversation.