"That will be all." Foxx said, dismissing Remo with a wave of his cocaine spoon.
Now, Remo thought. Push now. "Oh, by the way, Doc."
"Yes," Foxx said irritably.
"A girl I know is just crazy about you. She went out with you once."
"Really," the doctor said, uninterested.
"Yeah. She told me to tell you hello."
Foxx smiled tightly and nodded.
"She said she didn't even think you'd remember her, but I said you looked like a great guy on television. I told her, 'Irma,' I said, 'I just know he'll remember you. He looks like a great guy.' That's what i said."
Foxx stiffened noticeably.
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"Irma was sick for a while, but she's all better now. I knew you'd want to hear that. Irma Schwartz. Remember her?"
"That's imposs-" Fox began, rising from his seat. He swallowed once, and the flicker of discomfort was gone from his face. "That's too bad," he said smoothly. "Do give Irma my regards."
"I knew you'd remember," Remo said, smiling. It was time to twist the screws. "I hear you remember lots of things. Like what happened here in this house back in 1938."
Foxx blanched.
"Some kind of drug experiments, weren't they, Doctor. . . Vaux?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," Foxx said quickly. "You must have me confused with someone else."
"Oh, I don't think so, Dr. Vaux. Because those experiments were with procaine, weren't they? And that's what you're shooting up these rich idiots with, isn't it? How many guests are here, anyway? Thirty, something like that?"
"I-I don't recall. . . ."
"Thirty people, at one pop a day apiece. That isn't that much procaine. So, no matter how much you charge them for it, it doesn't amount to that much money. And yet you've got about a million dollars in gold stashed away in your basement. Unless the publishers of your books are paying in gold bullion these days, I just don't see how you've come to acquire that."
"You're going to have to leave," Foxx said, his hands trembling visibly.
"So I say to myself, 'Remo, maybe something's going on here.' But it's just a thought."
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He turned to go. At the door, he touched his fingers to his forehead in salute to the white-faced, stricken-looking man who was gripping the arms of his chair as if he were riding a roller coaster gone haywire.
The push had worked. "Thanks for your hospitality, Doctor. Maybe we'll see each other again."
The doctor didn't answer. Long after the door closed with a soft click behind Remo he remained glued to his chair, his knuckles white on the armrests.
Chapter Nine
Remo had been talking to himself for the past ten minutes. Chiun was in the room with him, the same bedroom where Remo and Posie had discovered one another, but the old man was on a different plane. He sat on the floor in full lotus, his middle fingers and thumbs pressed together as he chanted Korean mantras in a low buzz. The only response Remo could get out of him were variations in the buzz. Intense buzzes signaled disagreements with Remo's seemingly solitary arguments. Chiun, Remo knew, was not about to dignify Remo's presence with words. Being a hero had relegated him to the dungheap of Chiun's emotional backyard in the first place. And, judging from the frenzy of the buzzes, Chiun wasn't that crazy about his new proposition, either.
"It's an assignment, Little Father," he pleaded, holding out the white toga toward the old man, who continued to buzz serenely. "!t doesn't mean anything. We'll wear them on top of our clothes."
There was a quick snort to assert Chiun's views on the idea, followed by the same low Korean buzz. The old man's eyes were closed.
"The ceremony's going to start any minute, and
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Foxx is primed. He knows we're on to him, and he's scared. If he's going to do something stupid, now's the time he'll do it."
Chiun rolled his eyes and continued to buzz.
"He'll send a message to somebody or move something, or talk to somebody in the place. I tell you, he's going to show his colors."
Chiun's face squeezed together in fury as the buzz pitched into a shriek and broke off. "As you showed your colors?" he burst out, unable to contain himself any longer. "As you duped those lunatics into believing you were a hero for executing a second-year exercise, while the feats of the Master of Sinanju were attributed to a couple of cretins wearing bath towels?"
"They're not towels," Remo explained, holding out the garments in his hands. "They're togas. The Roman senators used to wear them."
"And people voted for them? Were they nudists?"
"Everybody wore them."
"Who?" Chiun demanded. "No self-respecting person would don such a degenerate-looking thing."
"Lots of people did. Aristotle wore one."
"Never heard of him," Chiun sniffed. "A charlatan."
"He was one of the most famous philosophers of all time."
"Did he speak of the beauty of the shores of Sinanju?"
"Well, not exactly. ..."
"Then he is a charlatan. Everyone knows all true philosophers are Korean."
"Okay," Remo sighed. He searched his mind for another toga wearer. "I've got it. Julius Caesar wore one. He was a great emperor."
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Chiun pouted. "Who cares what white men wear?"
"Just put it on. We can't get into the ceremony without them."
Reluctantly, Chiun took it from Remo's outstretched hands. "I will wear this shameful garment on one condition," he said.
"Yeah?" Remo asked hopefully. "What is it?"
"That you tell these fools gathered here that it was! who performed the double-spiral air blow that sent the two degenerate ones into the heavens."
"I can't do that. They'll turn against us. Right now they like us, so even Foxx can't throw us out. We've got to stick around to see what he's doing."
While Remo spoke, Chiun was swinging his head back and forth, his eyes closed, his jaw clamped shut with finality.
"Aw, come on, Chiun. It'll make things so much harder. And I want to be down there now, before Foxx makes his move."
"That is my condition."
"Anything else. Ask for anything else, and I'll do it. We can spend our next vacation in Sinanju, if you want it."
"We are spending our next vacation in Sinanju in any case," he said. "It is my turn to choose the yearly vacation, and I have already made my choice clear to Emperor Smith."
"Then how about a new Betamax?" Remo suggested. "I'll get you the whole setup, with a four-foot-wide screen and everything."
"I am content with such humble viewboxes as I already have," Chiun pronounced.
Remo gave up. "Isn't there anything you want badly enough to wear that toga for?" he asked in desperation.
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Chiun was silent. Then a gleam came to the old almond-shaped eyes, and he spoke. "Perhaps there is one thing. One small thing."
"Here it comes. Okay, shoot."
"Bring me a picture of Cheeta Ching in ceremonial Korean robes. For this, will I cast aside my self-respect to appear publicly in a bathtowel. It will prove to her the extent of my admiration of her beauty."
Remo's mouth tasted sour at the thought of confronting the Ho Chi Minh of the airwaves. Still, it beat revealing to the patrons of Shangri-la that Chiun had nearly murdered two of their number over a passing thought. "You got it," he said.
"O wondrous day," Chiun cheeped happily as he wrapped the white toga around his yellow brocade robe. "Remember, you promised."
Remo grunted.
The banquet hall at Shangri-la was a sea of white togas and sparkling martini glasses. The chauffeur who had driven the guests from the train station at Enwood milled around the crowd, looking uncomfortable in his toga, passing out grotesque two-foot-tall Aztec masks.
"What's this for?" Remo asked as the chauffeur handed him a huge green and white mask.