Laughing, Remo started down toward the water. Chiun followed, gesticulating in anger with every step.
Once they reached the water, Chiun noticed the pleased cast of his pupil's face.
"What are you thinking of?" he asked.
Remo took the police sketch out of his pocket, carefully unfolding it. "I know what my mother looks like. She talked to me."
"She was an illusion."
"No. It was her. The Dutchman is good at projecting illusions, but he couldn't have cast one a whole state away. It was her. I don't know her name, but I know her face and her voice. It's a first step. And my father is out there, whoever he is." Remo stepped out of his shoes. "And I intend to find him."
"Do not get your hopes too high," Chiun warned.
Remo looked up from the drawing. "You seemed awfully eager to go along with that crap about Smith being my father. What was that all about?"
Chiun shrugged. "A mistake. Like your sending that noisy youth away."
"You think he's my kid?"
"He wears your face."
Remo shrugged. "Hard to tell under all that camo paint."
"I notice you did not wipe it away, the better to see the truth."
"Maybe I didn't want to know the truth."
Chiun smiled. "You are a good father, Remo Williams. Even if you have been woefully negligent in the past."
Remo handed Chiun the folded drawing for safekeeping and without another word slid into the water. It swallowed him without a ripple. After a moment there was no trace of his existence.
Down the road a car started up.
The Master of Sinanju stood looking at the regathering water, listening to the fading engine sound as his wizened features pulled tight and concerned.
Behind him the purple pterodactyls flying low over Folcroft Sanitarium on tiring wings slowly faded against the cobalt sky until they were no more.
Chapter 36
Big Dick Brull showed up at the Lippincott Savings Bank unannounced later that day. That was the way IRS usually hit a bank. Without warning. That way no one could bury records, pretending to misplace them or stonewall in other ways.
Striding through the staid lobby, his head swiveling like a radar dish, confident as only a man who worked for the federal government and had a fresh change of underwear could be, Big Dick Brull made a beeline for the director's office.
"Richard Brull, IRS, to see Jeremy Lippincott."
"Are you expected?" asked the secretary.
"Not if we can help it," said Brull.
"What shall I tell Mr. Lippincott this is in reference to?"
"The Folcroft Sanitarium account and a matter of twelve million dollars."
The secretary dutifully conveyed the information to Jeremy Lippincott by intercom.
Lippincott's amplified voice was grating. "Confound it! I have already explained the mistake to the IRS. Twice. Why are they sending more people to annoy me?"
"Because," barked Big Dick Brull into the speaker, "IRS takes no answers at face value, and no prisoners at all."
"Sir! You can't go in there!" the secretary protested.
Big Dick Brull barged in anyway. He crossed the threshold, and behind his desk, Jeremy Lippincott froze in midnibble, eyes startled, the raw carrot dropping from his poufy pink fingers.
Both men froze for an eternity that lasted barely thirty seconds. Lippincott gulped guiltily.
Big Dick Brull lost the contents of his bladder before he lost consciousness.
THE NEXT THING he knew it was hours later and he was in hospital being looked over by a team of doctors and his immediate IRS superior, who was looking very displeased.
"You have a lot of explaining to do, Brull."
Brull did his best to explain. "It was a big fuzzy bunny rabbit. It followed me from the hospital. It's been following me for days, beating its drum. I don't think it likes me."
"I received a call from the Almighty. She is very upset at me. In turn, I am very upset with you. It seems you seized a private hospital without going by the book and managed to screw us up with DEA, FEMA and no one knows who else."
Big Dick Brull looked at his naked toes peeping out from under the bed sheet. "A bunny wabbit stole my shoes," he said in a tiny voice. "Pterodactyls ate my paperwork."
"There, there," he was told by one of the attending physicians. "No need to repeat it all. We heard enough while you were under. Why don't you rest?"
"Dickie wants to go home," Brull said in a whiny voice.
"That's not possible right now. In fact, we're thinking of moving you to a place where they know how to deal with people who see pink rabbits and purple pterodactyls."
Big Dick Brull looked blank.
"Yes. It's a marvelous facility. Not very far from here, in fact. Perhaps you've heard of it. Folcroft Sanitarium?"
Big Dick Brull opened his mouth to scream. All that came out was a mousey squeak. Then they injected the needle into his forearm.