Bonnie stood on the sidewalk for a few long seconds after the car had gone. As her body relaxed, she felt an uncontrollable shudder, as if someone had just dropped an ice cube down her bare back.
It was probably all perfectly innocent, she thought
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hopefully. The woman had likely mistaken her for one of her followers, out for a night stroll. They had strict curfews up there, Bonnie had heard.
By the time she reached the next intersection, she had convinced herself that it was all just a case of mistaken identity. She was about to cross the street when a figure stepped out from behind a high row of hedges at the corner lot and touched her arm.
Bonnie all but jumped out of her freckled skin.
It was that woman. Esther Clear-Seer. That was her name. The blue car sat silently a few house-lengths up the side street, its lights off.
Bonnie's heart pumped wildly.
"I'm sorry," Esther Clear-Seer said. She tapped her forehead with the palm of her hand and rolled her eyes heavenward as if she was the flakiest thing ever to come down the boulevard. "I think I probably scared you back there, and I'm really, really sorry. I just need directions, and usually I like to ask a man this late at night, but there's no one out around here for miles and, well, I saw you coming out of your little meeting..." She shrugged like a helpless sitcom housewife.
To Bonnie, the woman, who had been alternately laughed at and demonized by the local press, suddenly seemed more human.
She was friendly and scatterbrained and she continued apologizing profusely as she asked for directions to the police station.
Any concern Bonnie had immediately abated. After all, how dangerous could someone be if she was asking the way to the police station?
Bonnie pointed down Maiden Lane into the washed-out light cast by thirty-year old streetlamps...
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A hand snaked out, unseen, from under Esther Clear-Seer's jacket.
Bonnie's was just explaining the sharp left on West Street when the metal tire iron collided with the bar-rette at the back of her head. She crumpled like an aluminum can. Strong hands reached under her armpits.
A moment later the blue car was gone and there was no sign of Bonnie Sweetwater.
Virgin number one.
Chapter Six
Remo and Chiun rented a car at the airport in Worland, Wyoming, and headed south along Route 789 in the direction of Hot Springs State Park.
According to Smith, the ranch belonging to the Church of the Absolute and Incontrovertible Truth was located in the northwest corner of Wyoming, on the southern edge of the Hot Springs State Park, near the town called Thermopolis. The church owned several hundred acres of real estate in the area west of town.
Chiun had remained silent for most of the plane trip, stirring from his strange quiescence only long enough to shoo away the bevy of buxom stewardesses that had flocked around. They were ignoring Remo and fussing over the Master of Sinanju, who sometimes brought out the maternal instincts in women who generally looked as maternal as Anna Nicole Smith in crotchless panties.
It looked as though the car trip wasn't going to be any better.
There were times when Remo would have invited Chiun to clam up, but that was when the Master of Sinanju was haranguing him about some niggling little peeve. As far as Remo knew, this time he hadn't done anything whatsoever to tick off Chiun.
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"You didn't have to come, Little Father," Remo said when he could no longer bear the silence. He glanced at the Master of Sinanju, who was watching the aspens and cottonwood trees zip by in blurs of brilliant green.
"I did not have to sit at home, either," Chiun replied.
"You got me there," Remo admitted.
They rode on in silence for a few minutes longer before the Master of Sinanju spoke again.
"Remo?"
"I'm still here."
"Perhaps it is time we sought another client for our services."
Remo arched an eyebrow. "What, did you and Smith have a fight?"
Chiun's hazel eyes leveled on Remo. "If we did, he would not have breath to order you hither and yon."
"Then what gives? I thought you were happy with the current contract—all the gold you can carry and all the fish you can eat."
Chiun glanced thinly out the window. "Riches are not always the sole consideration of a Master of Sinanju," he said softly.
Remo nearly drove the car off the road. Almost before Chiun had started training him in the earliest Sinanju breathing techniques, long before Remo had mastered the subtle feats of dodging bullets and scaling sheer rock faces, Chiun had instilled in him the one eternal, transcendent tenet of all previous Sinanju Masters: cash only, always up front. And although a lot of haggling went on between Smith and Chiun, in
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the end Chiun was always secretly satisfied when their
contract was renewed.
lor Chiun to say that gold didn't matter was akin to O. J. Simpson pleading guilty, George Washington apologizing for the Revolutionary War and Santa Claus saying Christmas was a commercial scam—all rolled into one.
' 'Why would you want to just up and quit?'' Remo asked.
Chiun's parchment features grew impatient. "I do not 'up and' anything. This is not a decision to be reached lightly. Smith always paid on time and therefore will be remembered as a great and wise ruler in the scrolls of Sinanju, though the glossary will doubtless define him as a raving lunatic with pounded rice paste between his fat white ears."
"All historical inaccuracies aside, why now?" "Have you not noticed how his entire body creaks and groans? It is an effort for the man to stand straight. The vitality of Smith as emperor of America ebbs with each passing day." Chiun nodded at the wisdom of his own words. "It might not be long, Remo, ere we find ourselves without employment."
"We can cross that bridge when it falls," Remo said.
"We could send out feelers," Chiun suggested slyly, using a word he had picked up from television the previous day. "Smith need not know of our discreet, private inquiries."
"Look, I'm not ready to leave Smith in a lurch," Remo said. "Case closed." He gripped the steering wheel more tightly. "Why don't you check the map?"
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he added, eager to change the subject. "See if we're anywhere near Thermopolis."
"I am an assassin, not a cartographer," Chiun announced haughtily. "And as the designated and sanctified chauffeur to the Master of Sinanju, it is your responsibility to find it for yourself." And with that he returned his gaze to the passing trees.
They rode the rest of the way to Thermopolis in silence.
The first thing Remo and Chiun discovered when they arrived in town was that there was a campaign
going on.
Of course, there had been indications of political activity along the highway—a road sign here, a bumper sticker there—but downtown Thermopolis looked like the epicenter of a political earthquake.
Bumper stickers were slathered haphazardly on cars, windows and telephone poles, colored flags flapped gaily between buildings and giant billboards squatted like primordial birds atop seemingly abandoned flatbed trailers.
"Remo, did not this unstable land just have a time for this buffoonery?" Chiun clucked disapprovingly as they drove past lawn after lawn decorated with red, white and blue placards announcing the political leanings of the home owners. Most seemed to favor the reelection of Senator Jackson Cole.
"If you mean did we just have an election, yes," said Remo. "But that was for President. This guy Cole is running for the senate."
Chiun was confused. ' 'Were not the senators elected at the same time as the President? I remember talk of
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his garment hems failing to sweep others into office in his wake."
"You mean coattails," said Remo. "Some of the Senate was up for reelection during the presidential campaign. And all of the House, I think. But the Senate races are staggered so that everyone isn't up for reelection at the same time."