"Come on. You're going to love Cleveland."
"Cleveland? Why are we going to Cleveland? What is in Cleveland?"
"Smith was seen there."
"And of course he is still there waiting for you?"
"Maybe not, but maybe we can pick up his tracks."
Chiun shook his head sadly. "I think you and your Mr. Garbage have confused the mad emperor Smith with a rabbit. He will not leave any tracks."
"Orders are orders," Remo said. "That's the way Corbish wants it."
"Well, then, by all means, we must run. Mr. Garbage has issued an order. Let us not question it; let us take leave of our senses too, and go running off to Cleveland, wherever that is, to look for a man that we know has left Cleveland. Very clever, your new emperor."
"Can the chatter. We've got to look for Smith."
In a motel room outside Cincinnati, Smith waited; he expected that Remo would soon be after him.
It had been a risk he had to take, calling Corbish, but he had to find out how much the man knew and how much control he had of CURE. The prospect of having Remo after him had taken second place in Smith's mind, but now he could think about it.
The issue wasn't even Smith's life. In his patrician view of things, that was perhaps the least important thing. The country was the most important. With Corbish at the controls of CURE, the entire country lay open to him like a fresh fruit pie. He could cut whatever size slices he wanted.
Eventually, the President would realize that CURE was not working correctly. Perhaps the President might even turn the money off. But by that time—if that time ever came, if the President himself had been able to stay free of Corbish's control—by that time, the damage would have been done.
Smith had thought about all this while driving out of Cleveland, his injured right leg throbbing with pain, forced nevertheless to stay steady on the gas pedal, keeping the car moving along at one mile under the speed limit.
Three times he stopped at roadside gas stations with phone booths situated far from the gas station offices. Using his change counter, he had placed three calls to the White House, trying to contact the President. How different it was from his office. There, Smith merely picked up the telephone inside his right desk drawer. It rang in the President's bedroom. No one else dared answer that phone.
But calling the White House through the switchboard to talk to the President was like trying to shave one whisker at a time.
The first time, he got nowhere.
The second time, he got an administrative assistant who seemed annoyed that an American should attempt to get a phone call through to the headquarters of America's government.
"Your name is what, sir?" the assistant had asked with artificial politeness.
"My name is Dr. Smith. What is yours?"
"Fred Finlayson. I'm an administrative assistant to the President."
"Well, Mr. Finlayson," said Smith, "this is very important. A matter of extreme urgency to the country." Even as he said it, Smith realized he must sound like one of the hundreds of hooples who called the White House every day to warn the President of the impending fluoridation disaster, the Red Menace in comic books and how pornography was destroying the minds of even unconsenting adults.
"I know I probably sound like a crackpot," Smith said, "but it is imperative that the President be told that I called. And no one else must be told. Mr. Finlayson, you will guarantee your successful future in government if you do this thing. It is now 1:45 P.M. your time. I will call again at three P.M. If you have given my message to the President, he will wish to speak with me. I will ask for you when I call again."
"Right, sir. Leave it with me."
"Do you have my name?"
"Better give it to me again, sir."
"Doctor Harold Smith. The President will recognize it, even though you do not."
"Sure thing, Doctor Smith. I'll get right on it."
But even as he hung up, Smith knew that Finlayson would not. The assistant probably had never spoken to the President since he had worked at the White House; it was hardly likely that he was now going to barge into the Oval Office and let the President know about the interesting crank call he had received that day.
Nevertheless, Smith called back 75 minutes later from another wayside phone booth. He had stood for 10 minutes, waiting for his watch to reach the hour mark.
He asked the White House switchboard for Fred Finlayson, and after a long series of buzzes, the amused young voice of a woman answered, "Mr. Finlayson's office."
"This is Doctor Smith. Is Mr. Finlayson in?"
He could hear muffled voices off the telephone. Then he could heard laughter and a voice saying, "he's got a loose upper plate." Hardly able to restrain outright laughter, the girl came back on the phone and said, "I'm sorry, Doctor Smith. I've just checked and Mr. Finlayson has gone home for the day."
"He left no message for me?"
"No, sir, I'm sorry."
"When you see Mr. Finlayson again, perhaps just by turning around, tell him that I strongly suggest he begin reading the Help Wanted colums of the local press."
Rather than hear another laugh, Smith hung up. He waited a few moments in the phone booth, shaking his head sadly. If Albert Einstein had tried to use a telephone to warn President Roosevelt about the danger of the Nazis developing an atomic bomb, the world would now be speaking German. Fortunately, Einstein had written.
But that was out of the question for Smith, and so obviously was trying to reach the President by phone.
It had been a stupid attempt and it had created a new problem. No doubt, Smith's name would now be on the confidential reports that flowed out of the White House every four hours to wind up in CURE's computers,
Corbish would without doubt see the name, and when the phone calls were tracked down, it would outline Smith's route as clearly as if he had sent Corbish a road map.
So Smith got into his car, veered off at the next major intersection, and hours later pulled into a motel room outside Cincinnati, where he paid cash in advance.
Smith lay on the motel bed, thinking.
Remo might be his hope. Remo could remove Corbish from CURE. Or, he could get into the White House to have the President confirm that Smith was still the head of CURE and that Corbish was an impostor.
But if he just sought Remo out, it was possible that Remo might have been taken in by Corbish enough to kill Smith on the spot. It was what he had been trained to do.
Smith had to arrange to meet Remo on neutral ground, where Smith would have some control of the outcome. He thought about that for a long time as he smoked, trying to forget the rising pain in his right leg.
Then he sat up and reached for the telephone.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
"All right, Chiun," Remo demanded. "You look at this and tell me my emperor is cracked."
In his hand, Remo held a telegram and he waved the yellow paper in front of Chiun's face.
Chiun ignored him. He sat on the floor in the middle of their Cleveland hotel room, studiously and laboriously scratching one letter at a time on his long parchment scroll. He paid no more attention to the telegram than if it had been a microbe.
Remo kept waving it.
"Read it to me," Chiun said.
"Okay," Remo said. "Okay. Okay. Okay. You want to hear it, I'll read it to you. Are you ready for this?"
"I won't know until you read it. If you ever do," Chiun said, putting down his goose quill. "Since you must speak aloud, you are permitted to move your lips when you read."
"Right," Remo said. "Right. Right. Here's what it says. It says: 'Remo. When are you going to hit a homerun?' And it's signed H. S. That's Smith. Now what do you think of that?"
"I think we are fools to be in Cleveland because Emperor Smith is not here. I think anyone who sent us to Cleveland is a fool also. And I think the only one besides me, who is not a fool, present company included, is Smith himself."