"I don't want to hear about it. I want to read my mail."
Remo opened the padded envelope with the slit of a fingernail, like a bladed paper cutter. Inside was a book:
Summary: The Presidential Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy.
There was no note. Remo threw the hard-covered blue bound book onto the floor.
"Just what I need," he growled. "Smitty sending me a book to read."
Chiun said, "With all these interruptions it becomes more and more impossible to meditate. First the Mad Emperor on the telephone, then you working the corners with heavy leaden feet, puffing like a chee-chee train ..."
"Choo choo," said Remo.
"And that boy at the door. Enough is enough." Chiun rose to his feet like a twist of smoke under pressure, released from a wide-topped jar. As he came up he brought the book with him. "What is this document?" he said.
"A report the government made when President Kennedy was murdered."
"Why do they call it 'assassination,'" Chiun
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asked, "when it was murder, not an assassination?"
"I don't know," Remo said. "I forgot to ask."
"Have you ever read this book?"
"No. I favor light reading. Schopenhauer. Kant. Like that."
"Who is Schopenhauer and why can't he?"
"Why can't he what?" Remo asked.
"What you just said. Schopenhauer can't."
"Never mind," Remo said.
"You can always improve your mind by reading," Chiun said. "In your case, it may be the only avenue left."
He opened the book and looked inside.
"This is a nice book," he said.
"Glad you like it. Consider it a gift from me to you. With love."
"That is very thoughtful of you. You are not all bad."
"Enjoy it. I'm going out."
"I will try to endure," Chiun said.
Down in the lobby, Remo looked up the telephone number of the Secret Service. He fished in his slacks for a dime, but his pockets were empty.
He saw the bellboy who had delivered the book to him and motioned him to come over. The boy came slowly, as if fearing Remo had come to his senses and wanted his money back.
"Hey, kid, can you lend me a dime?"
"Yes sir," the boy said. He handed over exactly one dime.
"And I'm not poor," Remo said. "I'll pay it back."
Obviously the Secret Service had not yet caught the full meaning of Washington's new
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spirit of open people's government because when Remo arrived to talk to someone about a plot to assassinate the President, he was not directed to the office he wanted. Instead he was whisked off to a room where four men demanded to know who he was and what he wanted.
"When did you plan to do it?"
"Do what ?" Remo asked.
"Don't get smart, fella."
"Don't worry, I won't. It'd make me too conspicuous around here."
"We'll just have to hold you for a while."
"Look. I'm looking for a guy. He's always popping pills. I don't remember his name, but everybody ought to remember his nervous stomach. I talked to him yesterday."
"You mean Benson ?"
"I guess so. I talked to him yesterday with a congressional committee."
"You're with a congressional committee."
"That's right," Remo said.
"Which one?"
"The House Under Committee on Over Affairs. I'm the Middle Secretary."
"I don't know that one."
"Call Benson, will you please?"
When Remo was escorted into Benson's office a few minutes later, the assistant director was swallowing a palmful of pills as if they were salted peanuts and he was in training for a cabinet appointment.
"Hello," the man sputtered as he choked and coughed.
"Drink some water," Remo said. As Benson drank, he said, "I thought Chiun got you off the pills. By talking about the egg."
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"He did. I was golden for a day. But today everything started off wrong and before I knew it I was hooked again."
"Stay with it, that's the answer," Remo said. "The first few weeks are the hardest."
"I'm going to. I'm going to try again as soon as I get rid of this pile of papers on my desk."
Remo looked at a foot-high stack of reports and correspondence on the wood-finished metal desk and wanted to shake his head. Benson would never get off the pills because he would never find the time to get off the pills. There would always j
be too much work, or a too-cranky wife, or too-bad weather. There would always be something to stop him, to put off his plan until tomorrow, and he would just keep on with pills. Better living through chemistry. Better living and faster dying.
"So what can I do for you?" asked Benson, the coughing jag completed.
"You know that the threat has come. The President's supposed to be killed tomorrow."
Benson met Remo's eyes levelly, then nodded. "We know. We're on it. One thing I don't understand is how you know so much about it."
"Congress," Remo said by way of explanation.
"If Congress knew anything about this, it'd be all over the papers by now. Just who are you?"
"That's not important," Remo said. "Just we're on the same side. I want to know more about the payments that you made in the past."
Benson squinted, then shook his head. "I don't think I can give you that," he said.
"If you want, I can have the President of the United States call you and tell you to give me that," Remo said. He met Benson's eyes coldly.
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Benson's eyes were bloodshot, the eyes of a man who had gotten early on into the bad habit of working too hard and then found out that bureaucracies searched out such people unerringly and loaded work on them until they collapsed under the pressure. Benson's workload would decrease the day the bureaucracy found out he had been dead for three months.
"You won't have to do that," Benson said. "I guess it won't do any harm to tell you about that." Talking to Remo meant one less phone call he'd have to take, a half-dozen fewer pieces of paper that came across his desk, one less problem to take home. It was a mistake, but the kind made by the overworked. That was the way empires crumbled. Because people became too busy to be careful.
"We sent the tribute money to a bank account in Switzerland," Benson said. "I told you, I think. Walgreen delivered it for us."
"And that's where it died?"
"No. We had it tracked from there, but it went through different accounts to a half-dozen different countries. Mostly in Africa. And eventually it just got lost out and we couldn't ever nail anybody with it."
"No clues ? No surmises ?"
"None at all," said Benson.
"And you've still got nothing about tomorrow's festivities ?" Remo asked.
Benson shook his head. "Somehow," he said, "I get the idea that you're more than just a congressional flunkie."
"That's a possibility," Remo said. "Have you done everything for tomorrow? In the way of protection?"
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"Everything. Every tree. Every telephone pole. Every manhole cover. Every rooftop within mortar range. Everything. We've done every goddam thing we can, nailed down every loose end we can think of. And somehow I know it's still not enough."
"Maybe we'll struggle through," Remo said, suddenly feeling pity for Benson, and envy for the dedication to his duty that drove him into his destructive overwork.
"You got your best men on this?" Remo asked as he stood and walked toward the door.
Benson was popping an Alka Seltzer into a glass of water. He looked up and nodded. "I'm heading the detail myself."
"Good luck," Remo said.
"Thanks. We're all going to need it," Benson said.
"Maybe."
Osgood Harley had bought the four battery-operated cassette players in an office supply store on K Street. He paid for them with four new fifty-dollar bills. Then, grumbling because the cardboard box was bulky and heavy, he hailed a cab outside the store.