"She makes a cool three mil a year. She doesn't need your gold, and she's famous all by herself."
"This is an impossible country," Chiun spat. "The women are paid fabulous sums for looking into the TV camera and reading unimportant words."
"Can it, Chiun. If you have a crush on Cheeta Ching, do your own courting. Now, let's go. We're having a showdown with Smith."
The Master of Sinanju watched his pupil storm past him, his face a mask of elemental rage. He tucked his hands into draperylike sleeves and padded after Remo on silent feet.
As they got into the car, Chiun put a quiet question to Remo.
"What do you intend to say to Smith?"
Remo started the engine and threw his arm across the back of his seat as he backed out of the driveway. He shifted to forward gear and sent the car slithering down the street.
"I've had it," Remo said after a long pause. "Ever since that Enquirer story broke, my life has been an open sore. It was bad enough being dumped onto death row again. But to find out that Smith hadn't mellowed over the years-just gotten better at hiding his cold-bloodedness-that's it. No more."
"It was not Smith's nature that was hidden. It was that you allowed yourself to become blinded to it. All emperors are cruel."
"Smith's no emperor. He's just a bureaucrat. And let me finish, will you?"
Seeing the intensity of his pupil's words, the Master of Sinanju swallowed his planned rebuke.
"My house has been violated," Remo went on tightly. "All my life I've wanted a home of my own. I get one and now its filled with Smith's low-rent spy-movie junk. He's been watching us all along. For Christ's sake, we live next door to him. I knew it was a mistake to move into his neighborhood. "
"I agree. But I do not hold it against you," Chiun said levelly. "We all make mistakes."
"Against me!" Remo flared, taking a corner on screeching whitewalls. " I don't remember that being my idea."
"Perhaps it is another lost memory," Chiun sniffed as he absently arranged his skirts.
Remo fell silent. They had left the city behind and turned onto a wooded road. The salty fresh tang of Long Island Sound, occasionally visible through breaks in the treeline, filled their nostrils.
"You still have not told me what you intend," Chiun said at last.
"I don't know yet," Remo admitted. "I told him months ago I was through with the organization. But you're still under contract, aren't you?"
"Technically, yes," Chiun admitted. "But I too am disappointed in Smith. He claims that he is helpless in the matter of Cheeta Ching. He swore he would arrange a private meeting between us."
"Then we walk. It's that simple. We don't need Smith, or America. We're the top assassins in the world. We can write our own ticket. Go anyplace. Live high. Be appreciated. "
Chiun's eyes shone with pride. "I have longed for you to speak those words for many years, Remo."
"Then you're with me in this?" Remo asked.
"Yes," Chiun said. "No matter what entreaties Smith makes, no matter the quantity of his blandishments. We will stand together on your decision. Our decision."
"Done," Remo said firmly. His lips thinned as the austere stone lion heads mounted on either side of the Folcroft Sanitarium gate came into view like dim beacons of hopelessness.
He pulled through the open wrought-iron gates, handed the guard an ID card that said "Remo Mackie," and parked in the administrative parking area.
"Well, this is it," Remo said as he got out of the car. "The showdown."
"Fear not," Chiun said, floating beside him as they entered the spacious Pinesol-scented lobby. "We are resolute."
"Smith is going to have a fit when he sees us," Remo muttered as they rode the elevator to the second floor. "I've been trying to lie low ever since that Enquirer thing. Coming to Folcroft will really upset him.
"No more will we hide our faces like common executioners," Chiun said loudly. "In China we will have an honored place beside the throne."
Remo looked down at Chiun. "China? Who said we're going to China?"
"There is need of us there. The population is restive. There are whispers of plots, treasons, even open revolt."
As they stepped off the elevator, Remo hushed Chiun. "I got a problem working for the Chinese government, but we'll talk it over later."
Mrs. Mikulka looked up from her file cabinet as they approached the anteroom outside Dr. Smith's office.
"We're here to see Smith," Remo said sharply.
"Dr. Smith left express orders that he's not to be disturbed," said Mrs. Mikulka. She knew Remo as a one time groundskeeper of Folcroft and Chiun as a patient, now cured of delusions of grandeur.
"Too bad," Remo said, going through the door anyway.
"Pay no attention to him," Chiun whispered to Mrs. Mikulka. "He is overwrought. A cruel accident has robbed him of his most precious memories."
"Amnesia?" asked Mrs. Mikulka sympathetically.
"Worse. Ingratitude."
Ignoring Mrs. Mikulka's protests, Chiun went in and closed the door behind him. Remo stood inside the door, his fists clenched. Chiun drifted up to his side.
Across the Spartan office, Dr. Harold W. Smith's coathanger-thin shoulders showed on either side of his desktop terminal. The top of his head was also visible, the hair white and crisp as frost. The tapping of his fingers on the keyboard came like the beginning of a rainstorm.
"He is engrossed in another of his follies," Chiun said softly. "He is not aware of us."
"I'll change that," Remo said tersely. He raised his voice. "Smith!" he said coldly.
"What?" Smith's worn face poked out from around the terminal like a bespectacled gopher peering from its hole. It retreated instantly. "Not now," Smith said querulously. "The stock market is in danger of collapsing."
"What is he babbling about now?" Chiun asked Remo.
"Stocks and bonds."
Chiun nodded. "Oh, the tulip-bulb mania."
"Tulips?" Remo asked.
"Before it was stocks and bonds, men gambled in other illusions. The Dutch had tulips. The Japanese bartered rice. The Indians, dung."
"Dung? Really?"
"It was very important to them. They used it to cook their food. That is why you should always avoid Indian foods. There is no telling what filth enters the cooking process."
"Good point," Remo said, advancing on Smith's desk.
"Smith, I want a word with you," Remo said sharply.
Smith was hunched over the terminal so far that it seemed as if his spine would crack. He didn't look up. He was keying furiously now.
Remo looked at the screen. He saw three-letter stock symbols and numbers marching in parallel lines like alien creatures in a video game.
"The stock market can get along without you," Remo said, hitting a key at random. To his surprise, the screen winked out.
"My God!" Smith said hoarsely, inputting furious commands. "Five minutes. just five more minutes."
"No. Now!"
Smith whirled his chair around, crying, "Stand back. The nation's future is hanging in the balance."
Remo blinked, shocked by the vehemence of his superior's voice-but even more shocked by the realization that Smith wasn't seated in his usual leather chair. He was in a wheelchair. Smith gripped the wheel rims tightly as if he were prepared to run Remo down.
Remo raised his palms in surrender. "Okay, okay," he said, taken aback. "Five minutes."
"Thank you," Smith said crisply. His hands returned to the keyboard. He leaned into the machine as if looking through a portal to some horrifying world.
Remo drifted back to Chiun's side.
"You didn't tell me he was still in a wheelchair," he whispered.
"He has been very ill," Chiun confided. "When that toad Ransome took over the organization, he denied Smith medical treatment. He is recovering. But his legs are still weak. "