Two spots were empty. The sign at one spot said "Pneumatic Nut Cracker." The other sign read: "Electric Light Oscillator."
The poured concrete floor of the garage was stained different colors. Some places showed the evidence of burning. In other spots, there were holes chipped into the floor. Probably all by-products of one invention or another, Remo thought.
The center of the garage was taken up with an old wreck of a car, dented, rusted, and obviously painted over quickly with a light-blue spray enamel.
Why would anyone have bothered to paint such a wreck of a car, Remo wondered. And why paint it so badly?
He leaned on the car and thought for a moment. The only reason to paint a car that quickly and
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carelessly was to disguise it. But what had it been before that it needed a disguise? There wasn't much difference between an ugly, old blue car and an ugly, old red or green or black car.
Black car.
Remo turned back to the car and began to examine it carefully. In the corners around the windshield, he could see traces of a deep black paint. There were the same marks around the headlights and taillights.
He found a reasonably smooth section of fender and chipped away at it with his fingertips. He was right. Underneath the blue paint was black, and as he chipped away at more and more, he could see that the black paint was the deep, invisibility black that Chiun had found a chip of earlier.
He left the garage and went straight back to Wimpler's house, pointedly ignoring the posturing and posing of Phyllis in her garden.
Chiun was still reading Contract.
"You were right, Chiun," Remo said.
"Of course. What this time?"
"He must have tested his invisible paint on the old car in his garage."
"We knew he had invented that paint."
"But he also invented a nutcracker and something to do with electric lights," Remo said.
"The skull-crusher and the device for burning out electric lamps," Chiun said.
Remo nodded.
"Now that I have done all your work for you," said Chiun, "don't you think you owe me some small favor?"
"Such as."
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"Find out who the editor is of this magazine," Chiun said.
"Why?"
"Because if they pay their writers for these awful tales and essays, think how proud and happy they would be to have me writing for them."
"I don't think they're into Ung poetry," Remo said.
"I am not talking about poetry, but about a different kind of beauty. They write about assassins and removals, and who could write about these subjects better than I?"
"No one, I guess," said Remo. He had a sinking feeling in his stomach. He had thought that Chiun had given up on trying to write for a living. But that was a mistake. Chiun had just been waiting for his chance. Writers never quit.
"Good," said Chiun. "You find out about this publication. I will write for them and you will be my agent. Three percent of all I earn shall be yours."
"Oh, joy," said Remo. "I'm going to be wealthy."
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CHAPTER ELEVEN
The New York Telephone Company had built its reputation on taking sixty days to install a telephone and begin service, and only sixty seconds to disconnect a phone. But in his hurried move from his Brooklyn house, Elmo Wimpler obviously had not notified the company, because the telephone in the bedroom was still turned on.
When he reached Smith, there was agitation in the CURE director's voice.
"Where have you been?" Smith said. "I've been trying to reach you."
"Easy. You'll live longer," Remo said. "Besides, we've been out here solving this case. Your killer is a little twerp named Elmo Wimpler. He invented the invisible paint. He also invented some kind of skull-crusher machine and a gadget that blows out lights. He lived next door to that Curt who got it last night, and those three guys at the Friends of Inventors had turned down his paint invention."
"Where is he now?" Smith said.
"I don't know. He split from his house in Brooklyn," Remo said. "Anyway," he continued. "That's the good news. Now the bad news."
"Go ahead. I'm used to it from you," Smith said.
"There's a magazine called Contract" Remo said.
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I've heard of it." I cult for him to order Remo to kill someone, but
UT',
"We found some copies of it in Wimpler's house. A lot of stuff in there involved killing the Emir, and he had them circled. Stories, ads and things." Remo still had the copy of the magazine in his pocket. He took it out and read some of the ads to Smith.
"Here's one called 'Ice an Emir,' " Remo said.
"That one is mine," Smith said.
"What?"
"I placed that one," Smith said. "That's what I was calling about."
"You're responsible for 'Ice an Emir'? I didn't think you had it in you," Remo said.
"I was second in my class at Dartmouth in creative writing," Smith said.
"Well, don't think I'm going to be your agent, too," Remo said. "I've already got a client."
"I placed that advertisement to try to flush out anybody who might be thinking about a contract killing on the Emir," Smith said.
"I got my first group of answers today. Most of them are obvious cranks, but one in particular seemed real. I think it might be our friend, Wim-pler. I'm supposed to meet him tonight," Smith said.
"Where?" asked Remo.
"In the Sheep Meadow at Central Park. At midnight."
"We'll take it for you, Smitty," Remo said.
"I don't have to tell you how important this is," Smith said.
"Then don't," Remo said. It was the same old thing, a sidewise slide by Smith into telling Remo that he was not to bring Wimpler back alive. Smith's rock-bound, New England morality made it diffi-
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over the years he had found enough ways to say it without saying it. What Smith wanted was Elmo Wimpler's body left lying in Central Park. It wasn't a question of trying to evade responsibility. Remo had seen the pills that Smith always carried and was prepared to use, pills that would kill Smith in seconds. Remo had seen the coffin in the basement of Folcroft, in which Smith's body would go, and be sent to a funeral home in Parsippany, New Jersey, for a fast prepaid funeral. If Remo knew one thing in the world, it was that Smith would not try to run away from his responsibilities.
It was something else. It was simply the conflict between Smith's heart-deep belief in obeying the law, and his equally strong belief that CURE, while working outside the law, was absolutely necessary if America was to survive. He was unable to reconcile the two. He managed to deal with it by talking around it. Instead of directing Remo to kill Wimpler, he just reminded him how important it was. And Remo was well-trained. He knew what the assignment was. Elmo Wimpler had to die, and Smith would be happy about the result, and able to cling to some small piece of his pre-CURE self by knowing that he had not ordered the death. Not in so many words anyway.
Out in the living room, Remo told Chiun, "Come on. We're taking a walk in Central Park tonight."
Chiun rose, like a puff of smoke, still reading the copy of Contract he held in his hands.
He followed Remo toward the front door. Remo politely held the door open for him and Chiun stepped out first.
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Then Remo heard it. It was a sound above them. Chiun's eyes were burrowed into the magazine. Remo could hear the feet on the edge of the roof above them. He heard the scraping as the feet pushed from the edge of the roof.
Someone was coming at Chiun. From off the roof. And the old man, oblivious, his nose stuck in that magazine, was an easy victim. Remo jumped out through the open front door, pivoted around and met the attacker as he came from the low roof in a flying leap. Remo caught him around the waist. The sound of the man's spine filled the dark quiet street with a loud snap.