"You saying I should go?"
"I'm not saying and I'm not not saying. I'm happy to have you here for as long as you like, Remo. But a man's gotta have more than a place he feels comfortable if he's to flourish. You have only to look at my braves to understand that."
"You don't want me to stay?"
"I don't want you losing your way in life just because you found your origins. Knowing who you are and where you come from, these are things a man has to know. But a man's future is not where he is, but where he's going."
"I don't know where I'm going," Remo admitted.
"You take a step, and then two. Pretty soon you're either making a path or following one. Doesn't matter much which. Just so long as you don't vegetate."
"What's the rush?"
"The rush is we soon enough lay our bones down to die. Time is forever. We aren't. A man has only so many opportunities. The more he lets slip by, the fewer branching paths he's got."
Remo was looking east. "Out there I don't even exist."
"You're standing in your own meat and bones. You exist, all right."
"They robbed me of my life and my last name and what little I had."
"They introduce you to the old chief?" Sunny Joe asked.
"Yeah."
"Then they gave you more than they took away. And that's a fact."
"I don't think I can go back to working for America."
"Then don't. But don't hide from the world, either. Take another path. Life is full of them."
Remo said nothing for a long, long time.
Sunny Joe Roam chuckled.
Remo looked at him curiously.
"I was just thinking of a story the old chief told me about you," Sunny Joe said.
"What's that?"
"Back when you two first met, he tried to teach you some Korean words. Remember?"
"No."
"Hen. Seems he hankered to be properly addressed. Tried to get you to call him Sonsaeng."
Remo smiled. "I remember now. It means 'teacher.' But I kept screwing it up. It came out as 'Saengson,' which means 'fish.' Saengson Chiun. I was calling him Fish Chiun. He turned red every time and accused me of doing it on purpose. Finally he just gave up."
"He about cackled his old head clean off telling me that yarn."
"Yeah?"
"It's a fact. We had a great big laugh over it."
"Chiun's all right. He just thinks there's one way to do everything," Remo said.
"You think about what he means to you, Remo. You don't find that kind of friendship even among your closest kin."
"Well, I'm going to try and catch up on my sleep."
"You remember one other thing while you're about it."
"What's that?" asked Remo.
"The old chief, he saved my life. Took a big risk doing it, too. He knew a man has room in his heart for only one father. He was fit to lose big."
"Yeah. I know."
"You go your own way and he might forgive you, but he'll go to his maker cursing his own poor judgment. Don't you do that to him, Remo Williams. Whatever you do. Don't do that to him. Because the hurt will surely attach itself to you, and you'll go to your own grave cursing your pigheaded stubbornness."
"Chiun wants me to take over as head of the House. I don't know if I can do that."
"You should consider it," said Sunny Joe pointedly. "You're welcome to stay here a spell longer, but there's not much future in it."
Remo frowned. "Let me sleep on it."
"You do that," said Sunny Joe.
And when Remo turned to bid him good-night, there was no sign of the big Sun On Jo.
His eyes gathering visual purple to sharpen his night vision, Remo finally spotted him loping along like a long-legged totem. There was nothing graceful about Sunny Joe's progress, yet the wind carried no sound to Remo's ears. After the moon went behind a low-scudding desert cloud, it was as if he had evaporated.
Remo returned to his hogan. When he fell asleep again, he didn't dream at all.
Chapter Eight
Harold Smith was still sunk in his floral armchair when the sun peeped over the Atlantic.
He had made no progress. And it was time to go to work.
Logging off, he closed his briefcase, took a quick cold shower because it cost less and, after toweling his tight blue-gray skin dry, he passed into the bedroom to select a fresh suit.
His wife slept peacefully, her heavy breathing like a muted bellows in the room.
There were six identical gray three-piece suits hanging in the closet, the oldest one dating back to the late 1940s.