"How did they get moved around the country? Your husband was hit in North Carolina."
"Warner Pell called them class trips. Special rewards for outstanding students. He took the kids out of town himself."
"They must have been gone for days at a time. Didn't their parents ever complain?"
"Complain? Why should they complain? First of all, they are not the best of people. Second, they knew what their kids were doing, and they were getting well paid for it."
"How much?"
"Warner never told me."
"Make a guess," Remo said.
"I think the kids were getting fifty thousand dollars for each job."
"The Mafia only pays five," Remo said.
"Yeah, but Warner worked for the school system. He thought big."
"Hear that, Little Father. Fifty thousand dollars for a kid. And think of the work we do."
Chiun refused to turn away from the coin collection. "Money is paper," he said. "It is not value, just a promise of value. Gold is real."
"Don't mind him," Remo told Sashur. "He's pouting."
"Are you going to turn me in ?"
"Not just yet," Remo said. "Come here, I want to show you something."
He walked toward the bedroom. As Sashur followed, she said with a smile, "I'd like to show you something too."
But before she could show Remo her something, he showed her his something, which was the inside of a closet which he locked with the key.
"Why are you doing this?" she yelled through the wood-painted steel door.
"I just want you to stay put while I check this all out."
"You're a prick," she said.
"The worst," Remo agreed.
"A no-good, rotten, reneging bastard prick."
"I'd recognize myself anywhere." Remo jammed the lock of the closet door for good measure.
In the living room, Chiun said, "That woman is a liar."
"Why? What did she say to us?"
"She said these were very valuable coins. But there are many that are more valuable. Doubloons, pieces of eight, they are all worth more than these. Still, these are not bad."
"Chiun, stop that, will you please?"
In the hallway outside Sashur's apartment, Remo and Chiun were met by two overweight middle-aged men puffing down the hall from the elevator.
"Kaufperson," one panted. "Do you know where her apartment is?"
"Sure. Why?" said Remo.
"Police business, buddy," said the other man, his chest heaving from the strain of the twenty-foot run from the elevator.
Remo pointed to the door. "That's her apartment."
The two men ran past him.
"But you won't find her there," Remo said.
They stopped at the door.
"Why not?"
"I saw her leaving five minutes ago. She had a suitcase with her."
"Did she say where she was going?"
"She did as a matter of fact," Remo said. "I live just down the hall there. She came in to borrow some shoe polish. She's got this thing about shiny shoes. Uses only Kiwi and she was-"
"Get to it, man. Where was she going?"
"She said she was flying to Spokane, Washington. To see her folks. Old Mother and Father Kaufperson and all the little Kaufpeople."
"We better call the captain," one detective said. The heaving of his chest was beginning to subside.
"C'mon, fellas, why don't you tell me what this is all about. Maybe I can help," Remo said.
"Did you see the news tonight?"
"No," said Remo.
"No," said Chiun. "But I saw 'As the Planet Revolves'. It was very good today. Rad Rex is getting better and better since I have taught him how to move."
The two detectives glanced at each other. "Anyway on the news there was this story about this general who said there were two assassins around from the CIA. A white guy and an Oriental. And Kaufperson called and said they were coming after her. We're here to protect her."
"I guess she decided to run away," Remo said. "A white man and an Oriental, you say?"
"Right."