"I'm investigating. And I'm going to make you famous. You're going to know everything there is about assassinations."
"The only thing I have to know is how to get more money for my committee."
"There's money in assassinations?" asked Viola.
"Fortunes. Don't you look at the bookstands and the movies and the TV shows?"
"How much money?" asked Viola Poombs.
"Never mind," snapped Congressman Creel. "Get back to Minneapolis and watch that house. Or don't watch it. But get back there for when we arrive."
"How much money?" asked Viola, who in subjects like these refused to be intimidated.
"I don't know. Some guy just got $300,000 from a publisher for Cry Mercy. It's about how America's rotten greed caused all these assassinations, dear."
"You said three hundred thousand dollars?" repeated Viola slowly.
"Yeah. Now get back to Minneapolis, dear."
"Paperback or hardcover?" asked Viola. "Who kept the foreign rights? What about the movie
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share? Did anyone mention television spinoffs? Book clubs? Was there book club money?"
"I don't know. Why is it you become so damned technical when it comes to the almighty dollar? You're a greedy person, Viola. Viola? Viola? Are you there?"
Viola Poombs heard her name coming from the telephone earpiece as she hung up.
She left the booth in the Treasury building and went right up to the cute little old Oriental and gave him a big kiss on his adorable cheeks.
"Do not touch," said Chiun. "If you want to touch, touch him." He pointed to Remo. "He likes it."
"Are you ready, Miss Poombs?" asked Remo with a bored sigh.
"Ready," said Viola.
"The first thing you must remember," said Chiun as they all walked to the elevator, "is that assassinations have gotten a bad name in this country because of amateurism. Amateurism, free wanton murder without payment, is a curse to any land. I am telling you this so you will get it all right for your committee and everyone will know the truth, because I think I am going to be blamed if something goes wrong. And it will, because I am not in charge."
"Chiun," said Remo, "knock it off."
The assistant director of the Secret Service directed the President's safety. He never met anyone in his office because his office had charts of men in charge of assignments, White House protection, traveling protection and, worst of all, crowd control and protection.
The assistant director was forty-two years old and looked sixty. He had white hair, deep lines
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around his mouth and eyes, and deep dark watermelon wedges under his eyes, that always seemed to be staring out at some horror.
He sipped Alka Seltzer as he talked, washing down specially pressed bars of Maalox. The Maalox soothed his stomach. It took the great amount of acid his body poured into his intestines and neutralized it. His entire oral function was to combat these massive amounts of stomach acid his body produced during tension. While others sometimes got up in the middle of the night to urinate, he would wake up reaching for his Maalox. He dreamed in code.
When he first took over the job of protecting the President of the United States, he reported to the doctor that he was having a nervous breakdown. The doctor told him he was doing better emotionally and physically than his predecessors had. For his job there were new standards for nervous breakdowns.
"New standards?" he asked. "What are they?"
"When you start peeling off pieces of your cheeks with a letter opener, then we begin to consider nervous breakdown. And we're not talking just outer layer either. A good gash, right down to bone. Last fellow ground down his teeth till they hit stubs."
So when the luscious blonde and the Oriental and the incredibly-relaxed American in black tee shirt and gray pants and a loose manner of lounging in a chair asked the key question, the morning's Maalox came up all over the conference table.
"I take it," said Remo, "that there is a connection between the death of the Minneapolis
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businessman by explosion in Sun Valley and the safety of the President of the United States."
The Secret Service man nodded, wiping his lips with a handkerchief before the stomach bile ate through them to his gums. He quaffed a long gulp of Alka Seltzer and swallowed a Maalox bar whole. His lower intestines felt as if they were being crisp fried in Wesson oil. Much better, he thought.
"Direct connection. And we're worried. The way Walgreen was killed leads us to believe that we're facing a new level of assassin, probably the best there is."
"No. We are on your side,'' Chiun said.
"What?" asked the assistant director.
"Nothing," said Remo. "Ignore him."
"Are you sure you're from the House CACA committee ?"
Viola Poombs showed her card again. The Secret Service man nodded in rhythm with his twitch.
"AH right. Direct connection. Absolutely direct. If it weren't for the President of the United States, Ernest Walgreen and his wife would be alive today. How's that for direct?"
"Explain," said Remo.
"Explain," said Viola, because it sounded like the official thing to say.
"Don't bother," said Chiun. "It is obvious."
"How do you know?" demanded the Secret Service man.
"Because it is only done every other century," said Chiun disdainfully. And in Korean, he explained to Remo that it was a variation of The Hole. When one wanted tribute from an emperor not to kill him, one chose someone very well pro-
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tected and killed him. This was not done by the House of Sinanju, because basically it involved collecting moneys for not doing work, and that cost the body its skills. To get paid to do nothing produced weakness and weakness produced death. Remo nodded. He understood more and more Korean nowadays, but only the northern dialect of Sinanju.
"What did he say? What did he say?" asked the assistant director.
"He said there's somebody demanding tribute," Remo said.
"That's right. How did he know? How? How?"
"It's old stuff," said Remo. "Who gets the
tribute and how much ?"
"I can't say. The President has to authorize it and this new one, he didn't understand what it was and cancelled the payments. It's happened before, but before we could always get the President to listen. This guy won't even listen. He says he's got a country to worry about."
"You say it happened before. What before?" Remo asked.
"Well, before they threatened the President's life. The last President. They got hold of this loonie and gave her a .45 caliber gun and got her close, told her just how to get close, and then, if that wasn't enough, they got hold of a second loonie with a gun that went off and they said the next time, that would be it, so the White House paid off."
"How long has this been going on?"
"Since Kennedy's death. That was the end of the good old days." The assistant director's hands quivered and he got the glass up to his lips and most of the liquid in his mouth. He wore white
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gray shirts with a crust design so the spilled Alka Seltzer and crushed Maalox would not show. "Being in charge of the President's safety is like using a bomb for a pillow. You can't sleep."
"All right," Remo said. "So the President has cancelled the payments. What happened since then?"
"We've gotten word that the President is going to be killed."
"Who sent you that word?"
"A phone call. Male. Late forties. Maybe Southern. Raspy voice. No trace of who he is."
"Start the payments up again. That should stop him," Remo said.
"We've thought of that. But we don't know how to reach the guy. Suppose he's just decided that it's time to kill a President? For whatever reason. Maybe he's tossed his cork. Who knows?"