"Because some of our systems don't seem to be working quite right. Granted, no one has penetrated us. But there is that strange sense of things like in the jungle when the birds stop singing."
"You're going crazy," said Remo.
"Watch yourself, all right?"
"Me and Chiun. Who do we have to be afraid of?"
"Didn't Chiun tell you?"
"Has he made contact with you?"
"I thought it would be a good safety precaution for me to keep in touch with you both."
"Because you think I'm crazy."
"Because I don't know what you're going to do. And it's a good thing I do have contact with Chiun because he thinks that for your own safety perhaps you should take off for a year or two and get out of the country, come back later when things are safer."
"He's hustling you. He wants us to get in on some business elsewhere. Nothing's bothering him. Is that where your hunch came from?"
"No. I'm warning you too. You're being stalked."
"You're both crazy," said Remo, and hung up.
In Folcroft Sanitarium, Harold W. Smith watched the computer screen taking readouts from a network across the nation. He wondered if he were losing his mental balance. After all, he really didn't play hunches and had never trusted them. Yet why did he have this feeling that not only was Remo being stalked, but by something he might ultimately be helpless against? Was the organization going to lose him after all these years? And if so, what would happen to the organization? It had come to rely on Remo and Chiun, perhaps too much.
Harold W. Smith did not like hunches because he couldn't analyze them. He could not explain in hard facts why his senses kept telling him Remo was now up against perhaps the one thing he couldn't handle. And there was no rational evidence for it. He had absolutely no idea of what that one thing was.
In the plush suite of Palmer, Rizzuto it was Palmer who almost threw a chair through the glass case enshrining their old storefront-office desk. "What is that idiot Rizzuto doing? There are hundreds of millions of dollars to be made on that stage. Why is he talking about stinking little Gupta? Forget Gupta. Was Debbie Pattie hurt? If she were hurt we could earn double Dastrow's fee for Gupta."
"I think it was a real accident," said Schwartz.
"How do you know?"
"I don't know," said Schwartz. "I forget what they look like anymore."
"As good as Dastrow's," said Palmer. "But they're more spontaneous, right?"
"Dastrow's are spontaneous. There's nothing more spontaneous than an air disaster. Dastrow's are very spontaneous. That's why we use him. The man is incredibly safe. But so what if this thing isn't his? That doesn't mean we can't clean up anyway. And Rizzuto's sitting on his goddamned hands out there."
"I never thought of rock concerts. What about the Academy Awards? Can you think of the value of an entire auditorium filled with producers, stars, directors, writers?" asked Schwartz. He rubbed his hands. He thought of having the auditorium collapse after the awards were given out so the winning victims would be worth more.
"You mean do an Academy Awards?" said Palmer. "Dastrow asks money up front."
"Give him a contingency fee like we work on."
"Writers aren't worth much," said Palmer. "We don't need the writers. We can do it without the writers. You don't get anything for writers."
"We can say the builders who negligently let that auditorium blow up or collapse or whatever Dastrow does with it, maybe poisons the air or something, we can say their lost lives are robbing our entire civilization of art."
"To say nothing of the studios' incomes."
"Yes, studios. The studios will be good."
Palmer dialed Dastrow's number and waited for the callback. It came about eveningtime as the sun set over the Pacific and Palmer, Rizzuto employees headed home on clogged freeways and Schwartz dozed.
"Listen. The accident in Chicago with the Gupta benefit gave me a great idea, Bob. A truly great idea. A wonderful idea. Instead of some accident with rock stars, what about the Academy Awards? We couldn't pay you up front, but perhaps a contingency-basis sort of thing . . . Bob, are you there, Bob?"
"I'm here," said Dastrow. "I'm just looking at something."
"What do you think?"
"About the Academy Awards?"
"That's right."
"I've already done an entertainment group," said Dastrow.
"You mean the Chicago rock disaster was yours?"
"Uh-huh."
"Are you working with someone else? Is that it? You think we're broke and you're working with someone else," Palmer moaned.
"No. You are the lawyers who work. You're the lawyers who work well with the sort of thing I do. You're the sort of lawyers I can always count on for this sort of work. You're fine."
"Then why did you do Chicago? We never discussed Chicago."
"I am trying to find out how something works."
"How what works?" screamed Palmer. Dastrow was always difficult in his own Midwest hayseed way. But this was impossible.
"What is going to destroy you if I don't."
"Thank you."
"I'm not doing it for you, Palmer. I've never done anything for you. Let's not be confused here. I do things for myself. If they get you, they're going to get me."
"They? Who are 'they'?"
"That's why I returned your call. I thought you might be able to tell me something about them. Most peculiar people I have ever seen. Absolutely strange. If you knew what I know, you would jump out of your windows right now."
"What do you know?"
"I know it's going to be fun, finding out what goes on with these two. I know I'm going to remove them from our lives forever. I know, dear Palmer, how things work."
And Dastrow hung up.
"What did he say?" asked Schwartz.
"He said no to a contingency-fee basis," said Palmer, "and Chicago was his, and no, he's not working with anyone else. You know, Arnold, I think that Midwest hoopie has found out how we work. After all these years, I think I realize he's been using us."
"Can we sue?"
"Go flash your Rolex," said Palmer. "If we were to sue Dastrow, the entire courtroom would turn against us. I guess I should have known that eventually he would have figured out how the legal system works. He figures out everything eventually. Could you imagine if his genius were somehow harnessed for good?"
"It is. He's making us money. We employ people. Our lawsuits help keep corporations more careful. By serving Palmer, Rizzuto Robert Dastrow serves America in ways he may never fathom," said Schwartz.
"Do you honestly believe that nonsense?" asked Palmer.
"Just practicing," said Schwartz.
Robert Dastrow could not believe his calculations. And yet there they were. The Chicago disaster had worked to perfection. Without bodyguards, Debbie Pattie had to use those two who knew how Gupta worked but not how machines worked.
They, in turn, had responded to the disaster in front of them. Dastrow would have been satisfied with a quick leap back to safety, But instead, he got more body action than he could have hoped for.
He got tests of strength. Quickness. Balance. Nervous system, and of course blood-pressure levels and the intricate motor responses that made limbs work, all during the course of extreme stress.
Built into the power lines to Debbie Pattie's guitar were sensors to measure the body responses of those who held them. The lines were coated with thick, sticky conducting fluid to give better readings.
And the most amazing thing appeared to Robert Dastrow, like some strange jewel in an exotic clock that kept time as no other instrument might.
He held the white-and-green paper readouts in his hands, quivering with excitement in the large machine shop he had built underground at his Grand Island, Nebraska, estate. In those black numbers on the coarse paper, he saw evidence of balance that would be more appropriate to a cat than a human. He saw a nervous system respond with a strong, sure precision, as regular and dependable as radio waves from the center of the galaxy, and he saw awesome strength coupled with an unbelievably perfect muscular symmetry.