"Well, obviously there's some place you haven't looked. There's only one other choice. Call for help from the Americans."
"I'd rather lose," said the inspector.
"So would I, but we can't."
"Why not?"
"State policy. This is my ultimatum. If we don't get our prime minister by midnight, you'll have American help by morning."
Poo and Remo had returned to Sinanju from the honeymoon. Poo had brought dresses from Jerusalem, a Western city with a good ruler, more often than not.
She told her friends about hotel suites and clothes.
She told her friends about new and exotic foods. Bread made of wheat that had a snow-white center and a dark crust.
Sweet drinks like Coca-Cola.
There was even a bread with a hole in it that was very hard, and should not be eaten when it came out of the oven, but baked again after it was split open. It was a delicacy spread with a white milk-fat substance called cream cheese and then topped with fish that had been held over a burning log. All her friends made a face when Poo told them she had eaten this dish called bagels and lox.
Raw grasses called salads were also served.
There was cloth on bedding called sheets and if one rang a buzzer one could order anything one wanted to eat at any time of the day.
There were rings and necklaces. There were rooms for dining where everyone from all over the globe ate.
The roads were not as nice as the ones built coming into Sinanju from Pyongyang, but there were more cars.
"One car would be more cars," a friend said.
And when they asked her about the wedding night, she only smiled knowingly and said nothing, letting their imaginations play over the delights the white Master of Sinanju had given her. But to her mother, she told the truth. She had to. There wasn't going to be a baby.
"He didn't touch me," cried Poo. "He didn't kiss me or touch me or anything."
"Nothing?" asked the mother.
"I said 'or anything,'" cried Poo.
"Did you entice him with the tricks I taught you?"
"I did everything but lengthen it in a steel vise."
"Try the steel vise," said her mother.
"He's a Master of Sinanju. You can't get close to him if he doesn't want you to. And, Momma, he doesn't want to. He doesn't want me."
"He's got to want you. He's your husband. I'll speak to your father."
And so the baker's wife told the baker what the daughter had told the mother, and the baker, with his wife's hectoring voice telling him exactly what he should say and do, fearfully went up to the great wooden house on the hill where the Masters of Sinanju had lived for millennia.
"And don't let him squirm away," called the baker's wife.
Squirm away? thought the baker. Master Chiun could split a man's skull like a dried leaf since he was twelve. He's going to kill me. At least there is one good thing about being killed by a Master of Sinanju. He can make it faster and less painful than anything else.
The baker crushed his own hat in his hands, and bowing, mounted the old wood steps to the entrance of the House of Sinanju. Emissaries throughout history had mounted these steps. Rarely did a villager come except to ask for help with a problem that could be solved by money or swift and deadly justice.
At the door the baker took off his shoes, as was the custom before entering the house. He kissed the threshold, and with his face pressed firmly to the floor, called out:
"O great Master of Sinanju, I, the father of Poo, Baya Cayang, humbly beseech your awesome magnificence to deign to converse with me."
"Enter, Baya Cayang, father of Poo, wife of my son, Remo," came the voice of Chiun, Master of Sinanju. "And rise, for you will be the grandfather of the issue of the marriage."
Back in the streets of the village it had all been clear. The baker's wife had told him to tell Chiun in no uncertain terms that Remo had not performed as a husband. They had agreed to the marriage with a white because they were sure that anyone who was a Master, even though he was white, could perform well. In brief, the baker's family had been cheated. And Chiun should be told that clearly. Either Chiun's son must deliver on all the marriage vows, or Poo would return to the baker's home, and the baker would keep the Master's bridal purse.
It sounded so much more reasonable in the muddy streets of Sinanju than in the great house of many rooms. How was one going to tell Chiun that the white he loved more dearly than a son, the white of whom no one could dare speak even a hint of ill to Chiun's face, was not a man?
It was death, if the speaker was lucky.
But Baya Cayang knew he could not return to his home either, with Poo crying and his wife badgering him. So it was either death or living death, and Baya Cayang, after he had been given rice wine by Chiun; and had talked about the weather, and how the day was going with Chiun, brought up the subject most tenderly.
"We are honored to be the parents of Poo, who has been wed to a Master."
"The honor is ours," said Chiun. He did not particularly like the Cayangs. They were a greedy family and somewhat slothful. But at least they were from Sinanju, and when one considered all the whites Remo had run around with, Poo was a blessing.
"Like you, we eagerly await a grandson," said Cayang. He dared to offer his cup for more wine. Chiun poured it. He was gracious about giving all guests as much wine as he could foist upon them, but considered any who would take it drunkards. He himself, like Remo, could not drink. Their nervous systems would disintegrate under the influence of alcohol, such was the fineness to which they had tuned their bodies.
"No one awaits a grandson more eagerly than I," said Chiun.
What did this dolt Cayang want? They already had enough gold to buy pigs for a lifetime of feasts. He wouldn't even have to bake anymore if Chiun did not demand the fine rice cakes of the village.
"There are things that must happen for Poo to become pregnant."
"Oh, those things," said Chiun. "She could do those lying on her back."
"She can. Not that I know she can. Not that she has. She hasn't."
"Of course she hasn't. I cannot tell you how glad I am, Baya, that Remo has stopped running around with white sluts, especially a Russian. Americans are bad enough, but the Russians are worse."
"Whites go crazy over Korean men, I hear. They do strange things with their bodies."
Movement would be strange, thought Chiun, remembering his own wife. Still, what did one want from a woman but to bear children and cook the meals, and hector as little as possible? Remo, on the other hand, was immersed in white ways. This woman he might have even fallen in love with, this Russian, worked in their government and commanded men like a soldier. He thought Remo might have even married Anna Chutesov, until Poo Cayang changed things. So if the baker beat around the bush, nevertheless he had to be respected for helping save Remo from his own kind.
"Because of your lovely daughter, Baya, Remo will never have to endure those evil onslaughts of white women."
"I hear they wear special clothes and do special things, with ointments and the like," said Bava.
"Let us not talk of the evils of white women, but the virtues of your daughter."