When the telephone rang later in the day, the Master of Sinanju was struggling over the proper phrasing of his reasons for abandoning the client who had paid the House a thousandfold greater gold than any client in Korean history. Chiun hesitated.
It might be a new suitor to the House.
On the other hand, it might also be Emperor Smith, who was doubtless gnashing his teeth, rending his garments and bewailing his anguish over having lost the services of Sinanju.
Goose quill poised, he decided to allow the instrument to ring. And so it rang. And rang and rang.
After some forty unbroken rings, it finally went silent. Only to immediately start up again.
Chiun nodded. Emperor Smith. Only he would punish the ears so with his stubborn refusal to accept the harsh truth that had descended so crushingly upon his kingly head. No self-respecting seeker of Sinanju services would betray such unbecoming eagerness before negotiations even commenced.
And so Chiun wrote on, serene in the knowledge he was not ignoring one of the new rulers who was now counting his gold and calculating his ability to secure absolute security for his throne and his borders.
It would be good to feel wanted again, he thought.
Harold Smith slammed down the telephone in frustration after the fifth series of forty rings had gone unanswered.
It was possible that the Master of Sinanju was out for the day, he knew.
It was just as possible that he was simply not answering the telephone. Chiun hated telephones. Or at least he pretended to. One of the biggest expenses—other than Remo throwing out brand-new shoes instead of polishing them—was monthly telephone replacement. If a phone rang at an inopportune time, Chiun simply shattered it with his hand or squeezed it to melted plastic in his fingers. Smith had seen Chiun's handiwork many times and never understood how crushing fingers could cause plastic to run like taffy. He just replaced the telephones.
Another telephone drew his eyes. A dialless red instrument now reposed in its proper place on his pathologically neat desk for the first time in a year—the While House hot line. Simply lifting the receiver caused an identical red telephone to ring in the Lincoln Bedroom of the White House.
Smith had refrained from lifting the red receiver however.
Before the incident at the UN, he had planned a courtesy call to the Chief Executive, informing him that the hot line was back in operation and CURE remained ready to field any mission requests.
It was a peculiarity of the CURE mandate that the President of the United States had no authority to order CURE into action. He could only suggest missions. Harold Smith had absolute autonomy in wielding the awesome responsibility set on his spare shoulders. That way no rogue President could co-opt CURE to pursue purely political ends.
But Harold Smith wouldn't call the President. Not yet. Not when the only news he had to convey was bad news. CURE was without its enforcement arm.
That revelation might tempt the budget-conscious Chief Executive with the only direct order he was allowed to give: shut down.
Smith restored the hot-line instrument to a desk drawer and locked it, then checked his vest pocket for the coffin-shaped poison pill and took down his briefcase from atop an old-fashioned oak filing cabinet.
He took a cab to the local train station and purchased a round-trip ticket to Boston. He didn't have to consult a schedule. He knew the timetables by heart.
Four hours later Smith stepped off Amtrak's Patriot Limited in Boston's South Station. Switching to the Red Line, he was momentarily chagrined to discover that the Boston subway system had had a serious fare increase since his visit.
"Eighty-five cents?" Smith asked the man at the collection booth.
"In New York City they charge a buck twenty-five."
"This is not New York City," Smith objected.
"And this isn't a flea market. It's eighty-five cents or take a cab, which charges a buck-fifty just to sit in the backseat and tell the driver where to go."
From a red plastic change holder, Harold Smith grudgingly counted out exactly eighty-five cents. He didn't buy a second token for the return trip. Life was too uncertain. What if he were to injure himself and be taken to the emergency room, and worse, pass away? The token would be completely wasted.
Leaving the North Quincy T stop, Smith followed West Squantum Street to Hancock, crossing over to East Squantum. Just past the high school, he turned into the grounds of the big fieldstone condominium that had once been a church.
Smith had purchased it at auction for a price so low it had almost brought a rare smile to his sour patrician countenance. The building had been originally erected as a church, and during the condo-crazy days of the late 1980s a developer had converted it into a multiunit building—and promptly went bankrupt when the boom went bust.
Smith rang the doorbell.
And received no answer.
He rang it again.
When no one came to the door, Smith peered into the glass ovals set in the double-leaf doors. He could see the sixteen mail boxes and separate apartment buzzers and the inner door, tantalizingly out of reach.
Smith abruptly walked down the street to a market and tried to purchase a single stick of gum.
The clerk set down a pack.
"I only want one stick," Smith told him.
"We don't sell it by the stick. Only by the pack."
Smith made a prim mouth. "Do you have any gumballs?"
"No gumballs. You want gum or not?"
"I'll take it," said Smith, unhappily dispensing fifty-five cents in change from his nearly depleted change holder.
As it turned out, Smith needed two sticks of gum to do what he had to, which saved him a second trip but still left him stuck with three unnecessary sticks.
Chewing the gum furiously, he pressed the sticky blob into the doorbell. It jammed the button solidly in.
Carefully lifting the fabric of his trousers so the knees wouldn't bag, he lowered himself onto the steps, set his briefcase on his knobby knees and waited while the doorbell buzzed incessantly behind him.
The door opened in less than ten minutes.
Smith stood up and turned.
The Master of Sinanju was wearing a gold-chased ebony kimono and an annoyed expression. It flickered into a bland web as soon as he recognized Smith. "Emperor," he said thinly.
"Master Chiun," Smith replied with equal thinness.
The two stood silent. There was no flowery outburst, no greetings or gracious offer to enter.
Smith cleared his throat. "I have come about the next contract."
"You did not receive my sorrowful message?"
"I received it."