Faith threw her arms around his neck the moment the door was closed. "I missed you so much!" she exclaimed. Her nose touched his; her eyes were practically mating with his own.
Gently, with one hand, Remo unlocked her embrace. Faith's hands went to his thick right wrist, and, moving slowly, began to caress his index finger.
" I can't stay," Remo said seriously, pulling his finger away.
Faith's face went into shock. "No?"
"No," Remo echoed. "This is good-bye. I don't know how to tell you this, but we can't see each other anymore. "
"But . . . but I love you."
"No," Remo said, paraphrasing Australian soap-opera dialogue he had heard in London. "You don't love me. You only love my index finger. Admit it."
Faith's expression broke like a mirror. "It's true!" she sobbed. "But we can work it out. I know! We can go into counseling."
Remo shook his head sadly.
"Give me one reason," Faith demanded, hurt.
"Here," Remo said, handing her the paper-wrapped bundle.
Faith carried it to the sofa, where she began unwrapping it. The rolled-up pelt of Bear-Man came forth.
She looked at it, at Remo, and at the suit again. "You!..
"Now you know my secret," Remo said, solemn-voiced. "Now you know why our love can never be. I am needed elsewhere." He took her trembling hand in his. "You're the only person I've told my secret to. Promise me that you'll keep it."
Faith's lower lip trembled. Her chin joined in. Her eyes began to well up and overflow.
"Y-yes," she said. "Of course. I'm so . . . honored you told me. I feel just like Kim Basinger."
"-my life is too dangerous to share it with anyone. You know how financial crime-fighting is."
"Oh, I know! I know!"
"Well," Remo said, thankful his facial muscles were holding together. "I gotta go now. Duty calls. Someone has to protect the market from the greedy."
He gathered up the Bear-Man suit and stuffed it under one arm and started for the door.
Faith rushed to him. "Before you go," she said. "Do you have any hot market tips?"
"Yeah. Dump all your faxes. They cause sterility in laboratory rats. The AMA is about to blow the whistle on the whole thing."
"Oh, I will. I promise."
At the door, Faith bestowed on his lips a wistful butterfly kiss. He gave her a discolored bear's tooth souvenir in return, then left, feeling her eyes follow him to the elevator.
His pent-up laughter held long enough for the elevator to reach the lobby. He laughed all the way down the street.
It stopped abruptly when he passed a teenager in a T-shirt that read "I SAW THE BEAR!" Under the legend was a picture of Bear-Man's ferocious head. Two blocks further along, a business type carrying The Wall Street journal under one arm almost bumped into him. He wore a brown baseball cap with a bear's head mounted on top. Remo saw bear-teeth bumper stickers, necklaces, and even a street mime in a shaggy grizzly costume.
"Oh, no," Remo said. He hailed a cab and raced to the Nostrum Building.
Remo found the Master of Sinanju fuming in the emptiness of his office. The trading room was still in ruins from the shooting. There were no workers to be seen anywhere.
Remo stepped over the litter of broken glass and furniture. Chiun caught sight of his worried expression.
"What is wrong, Remo?" he squeaked.
"What makes you think something is wrong?" Remo asked innocently.
"Your face betrays you, as always."
"Tell me your troubles and I'll tell you mine," Remo countered, joining him in the office.
"I have just been on the telephone with that deceiver, Smith," Chiun complained.
"Let me guess. He's taking Nostrum away from you."
"He would not dare. He says it is mine if I will assume all the debts. Nostrum is overleveraged, whatever that means."
"Search me," Remo said. " I don't understand business talk."
"It has something to do with Nostrum having borrowed money from something called the Social Security Trust Fund. They have called in the note. Nostrum must sell all its stocks to accomplish this. I knew nothing about this debt. Did you?"
"It's news to me," Remo admitted. "So what did you tell Smith?"
"I asked him who this Social Security Trust Fund was and he told me it belonged to the American government. I then told Smith that if the President wishes to sue Nostrum, I will take this to the Supreme Courtyard. You see, I have learned how these business people think."
Remo masked a smile. "And what did he say?"
"He began babbling about the elderly persons who will not be fed if the money is not returned. And then he made me an offer I could not refuse."
"He did?" Remo said. "Smith? Our Smith? Tightwad Smith? What did he offer?"
"Something more worthy than all the stock certificates in the world," Chiun replied.
"Yeah?"
"Australian beautiful dramas!" Chiun cried triumphantly. "Beamed by satellite to our very home every day. Think of it, Remo. I will once again have beautiful dramas with which to pass my declining years.
"I'd say that's worth millions of dollars any day," Remo said wryly.
"I knew that you would agree," Chiun said. "That is why I freely and with clear conscience offered him your share of Nostrum as well."
Remo's eyebrows shot up. "My share?"
"Smith threw in British dramas. How could I refuse anything so magnanimous?"
"Especially when you're not footing the bill," Remo said dryly. "What about Cheeta Ching? I thought she was number one on your wish list."
"A woman is young for a time," Chiun said loftily, "but art endures forever. And I think that when she learns of my magnificent treasure trove of beautiful dramas, she will beat a path to my very door, begging me to share these riches with her."
"Could be," Remo said. Chiun's wrinkled features broke into a pleasurable smile. "But I doubt it," Remo added quickly.
Chiun frowned. "We shall see," he said in a careless voice. "Now, what is it that troubles you?"
"I see Bear-Man everywhere I go. And he's not me."
"I know, I know," Chiun said unhappily.
"You must be cleaning up, huh?" Remo prompted.
Chiun's frown soured even more. "That lazy woman Faith," he spat. "She is ill-named. Her mother should have named her Faithless. A common shooting happens and she is afraid to come to work. I have fired her. I have fired them all."
"What happened?" Remo asked.
"She did not do as I instructed," Chiun explained. "Some bandit has appropriated the Bear-Man merchandising. Faith neglected to secure the proper copyrights or some such white nonsense, and now others are copying what should be only mine to copy."
"Great," Remo said. "I'm off the hook for personal appearances. The Bear-Man suit's out in the hall. It's yours. I never want to see it again."
"And you will not," Chiun snapped. "I have lost billions. Billions."
Chiun looked about him with the air of a Napoleon bidding farewell to Paris before going into exile.
"Good-bye, Nostrum," he said. "I will miss you."
"But I won't," Remo said.
"We will leave now. Let the new owners clean up this place." Chiun went to a file cabinet and began pulling out plastic bags.
"Come, Remo," he said. "Help me carry these away."
Remo accepted an armful of the bags. They were very heavy and bore store logos such as HMV and Strawberries.
"What's all this?" Remo asked, looking into the top bag. He saw only stacks of clear flat plastic boxes.
"My CDs," Chiun said proudly as he emptied the cabinet. "You see, I have not been completely cheated. On the advice of Smith, I have invested all my Nostrum salary in CD's."
Remo shifted the package to one arm and pulled out a box.
The label read "NANA MOUSKOURI IN CONCERT." The box under it featured Barbra Streisand's face.
"Compact discs?" Remo said, blinking.