Remo pulled out and sat his bare butt on the glass panel that topped the desk.
"Listen, fella. How do I know you've got him?"
"We got him. We don't kid around."
"I want to talk to him," Remo said. "How do I know you haven't killed him already?"
Silence for a moment, then Johnny the Duck said, "Okay. Here he is. But no funny business." Then off the phone, he called, "Hey, dink. Your boss wants to talk to you."
The accented voice that came next onto the line was Chiun's and Remo, looking down at Cynthia Hansen, still hot, still wanting, in front of him had a difficult decision to make.
"Listen, Chiun. Will they all fit in the freezer?
"Ah? balls. Okay, stick them in the bathtub. Pack them in ice or something."
Then Johnny the Duck was back on the line. "That's enough. See, wise guy, we got him. Now it's up to you if he lives or not. Remember. It'll be a person what says butterflies."
"Yeah, sure, pal. Anything you say. Do me just one favour, will you? Tell the old guy to use plenty of ice and to turn up the air conditioner."
"What?" asked Johnny the Duck.
"Look," Remo said. "I'll do anything you want. But just do this one thing for me, huh? Tell him I said to use plenty of ice and to turn up the air conditioner. Okay? Okay. Thanks, pal. You'll never regret it."
He hung up the phone. Cynthia Hansen lay with her eyes closed, her nipples at attention, her legs still framing him against the desk.
"Now, where was I?" he said.
"You can start anywhere," she said.
Johnny the Duck hung up the telephone, a look of puzzlement on his face. The commercials were over, along with the news; the organ interlude was over; and Lawrence Walters, psychiatrist, was on, preparing to unravel the tortured mind of Beverly Ransom, who was racked with guilt because she felt herself the cause of the death of her own daughter in a train accident, since she had insisted upon sending the girl to summer camp, and until she was cured, she could never again be a real wife to Royal Ransom, millionaire banker and chief financial backer of Dr. Lawrence Walters' street-level, store-front psychiatric clinic. Chiun was again seated in front of the television set, staring fixedly at the washed-out grayed picture, picking the images out of a grayness which was accented by the sunshine which fell across the dusty screen.
The Duck looked at Chiun. "Listen, dink."
Chiun held up a hand to forestall more talk.
"I'm talking to you," Johnny the Duck said. Chiun ignored him. Pops Smith found he did not like that. It was all right to be Oriental and old, but they were here on no laughing matter and they deserved respect.
Johnny the Duck nodded to Pops Smith who got up off a soft overstaffed chair and walked around in front of Chiun. "Sorry, old man, but we're not fooling around," he said and hit the button that turned the television off. That cost him the favour he had earned earlier.
Chiun's concentration was broken and he rose slowly, pathetically small and frail, and he looked around more in sorrow than in anger.
The Duck said, "I don't know what the hell he's talking about, but your boss said use plenty of ice and turn up the air conditioner."
"Why did you turn off my television show?" Chiun asked.
"Cause we got to wait here for a phone call and we ain't gonna wait and listen to all that stupidness," Johnny the Duck said.
If Pops Smith had not turned off the television set, he would have had something to think about, something to make him wonder if just one poor, black man could have done more with his numbers business than fold before the power and might of the Mafia. Pops Smith might have had a chance to think that one man, one poor, insignificant man, could be pretty powerful after all and might be able to win, even against long odds.
But Pops Smith had been the instrument that interrupted the saga of Dr. Lawrence Walters and his never-ending battle against mankind's age-old problems of superstition, ignorance and mental illness. And so Pops' skull was shattered first and he never had the chance to see Johnny the Duck somehow lifted off his feet and propelled across the room into the bewildered face of Vinnie O'Boyle, and Pops never got the opportunity to hear their temple bones give under the pressure of just two index fingers, never had the chance to think to himself that he didn't really have to surrender his business to the Mafia because perhaps it wasn't that powerful after all.
In death, he could see or hear or think of none of those things. He just lay on the floor, his eyes open but unseeing, as the television slowly brightened back on as Dr. Lawrence Walters said that guilt and repressed hostility were most destructive to the human psyche.
Forty-five minutes later, the man-known as Remo Barry-and Cynthia Hansen decided they were done for the day.
"What was the phone call about?" she asked as she picked up her see-through blouse.
"Put on your skirt first," Remo- said, sitting back naked in the mayor's tan leather chair, looking out over a street filled with happy Puerto Ricans, happy luncheonettes and happy record stores. "I've always been a tit man."
"Don't be indelicate," she said. "The phone call?"
"Oh. Some of your town's drug business hoodlums were holding my servant prisoner. They said they were going to kill him if I didn't spill my guts to whoever told me the password."
"Butterflies," said Cynthia Hansen.
"Yeah, that's right," Remo said. "Eavesdropper."
"Well, what about your servant? Aren't you worried?"
"Only about the air conditioning. I know he won't forget the ice, but he doesn't like the apartment too cool, so he might forget the air conditioning."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Cynthia Hansen said as she finished buttoning her skirt up the front, her fine young breasts trembling with the motion. "He might be dead or being tortured."
Remo looked at the clock on the mirrored mantel. "It's two o'clock. 'Edge of Life' just went off. Maybe I'd better call him." He picked up the phone and dialled.
He waited a few moments, then smiled. "Chiun? Yeah, how's it going? Did Vance Masterman finally work that thing out today?
"Oh, that's too bad. I'm really sorry for you. Listen, I was thinking that lobster might be good tonight. Yeah. You know how you make it, with the wine sauce. Okay. Okay. And Chiun," he added importantly, "don't forget the air conditioning."
Remo hung up. "Boy, I'm glad you made me call. He forgot the air conditioner."
Cynthia Hansen just stared as she buttoned up her see-through blouse.
CHAPTER TWELVE
But Remo did not eat dinner at home.
Cynthia Hansen offered to drive him to the subway, but as they drove along in her black city-issued Chevrolet, he stared at her long bare legs expertly working the brake and accelerator, and then looked up and realized she had turned the rear-view mirror so she could watch him. By the time they had reached the subway station in Hudson Square, they were hungry for each other again and they decided to have dinner together at her apartment.
Cynthia Hansen lived alone in a six-room apartment on the top floor of an eight-story apartment building that was one of the city's best. It still had a doorman and it had an elevator that worked, which was rare in Hudson, and the garbage had been allowed to lay uncollected in the cellar only once-until Cynthia Hansen had unleashed a flood of city inspectors on the property, papering everyone with summonses, until the owner who lived in Great Neck decided to do something about the garbage.
But the rooms were maze-like, seemingly unconnected, as if they were designed by a drunken architect, and in his first five minutes in the apartment, Remo made three wrong turns looking for the bathroom.
Cynthia's refrigerator was well-stocked, but they decided to dine on salami and cheese. Remo would not let her slice either with a knife, but instead tore off hunks for both of them.