"You just point and shoot, right?" he asked.
"No, it's much more complicated than that," Cheeta said sweetly. Her voice was like butter warm from the microwave. "Make sure you pan over to my face every time I ask a question."
"Isn't this interview about Esperanza?" Remo wondered.
"No. It's an interview with Cheeta Ching." She winked. "Stick around, and I'll show you why that's such a big deal."
Remo hefted the camera onto his shoulder, found the eyepiece, and experimentally roved the lens around the room. The face of the Master of Sinanju appeared in the viewfinder. It was very, very angry.
Remo took the camera away from his face and mouthed the words, "Not my fault."
"Humph," said Chiun, flouncing around, presenting his cold, austere back to his pupil.
The sounds caught Cheeta Ching's attention. "You. Grandfather. Yoo-hoo." She was still in her buttery mode. "Why don't you run out and get us some coffee?"
"I am no servant," Chiun said huffily.
"Well then, don't you have something you could be doing? This is a major, major interview for Mr. Esperanza. Only important people should be here. We cannot have any distractions. I'm sure you understand?"
"I," said the Master of Sinanju, in a voice that was like ice cracking in a glass, "do not."
Chiun stormed from the room out onto the patio promenade, where he could pretend to suffer in silence yet keep his eyes on Remo and the fickle Cheeta unobtrusively.
Enrique Espiritu Esperanza made his entrance a moment later. He came bearing a silver tray, which he placed on the coffee table before Cheeta Ching, who didn't deign to rise at his entrance.
"For you," he said smoothly.
"Thank you," said Cheeta, casually taking an Oreo cookie from the tray. As Enrique Esperanza sat down, she shook the cookie in his face. "Before we get to the story behind your brush with death yesterday, tell me about these."
"They are very good," Enrique invited. "You should try one."
Cheeta held up the confection so that Remo could get a close-up of it in her hand. He zoomed in eagerly. Cheeta's face in the viewfinder made him feel like an extra in Jaws.
"I'm given to understand that the Oreo cookie is the symbol of your campaign. Can you explain your position on the snack-tax controversy?"
"Gladly, Miss Ching."
Remo switched the lens over to the cherubic face of Enrique Esperanza. Remo's finger was on the trigger-or whatever they were called. The thing was whirring. He hoped that meant it was recording and not rewinding. He'd always had trouble with mechanical stuff.
"I am against all hurtful taxes," said the dark-horse candidate for governor.
"You can't be serious. That's boilerplate."
"But I am. Taxes are wrong when they hurt people."
"Would you mind expanding on that?" Cheeta Ching asked, lifting the cookie higher. The dark chocolate aroma wafted into her nose, tickling nasal receptors, which in turn triggered long-dead memory cells. Somehow it brought her back to her teen years, when she'd had a weight problem, and cookies had made her feel so good.
In the middle of an exclusive interview, Cheeta Ching almost did an unspeakable thing. She almost ruined her lipstick by biting into an Oreo sandwich cookie.
As the aromatic dark chocolate floated like some fragrant genie to her lips, she thought that maybe her tiny transgression could be edited out in production.
The Oreo never made it to her blood-red lips.
Instead, it exploded into black chocolate powder and flecks of partially hydrogenated soybean oil creme filling, as a high-powered bullet pulverized it before burying itself in the fabric of the leather sofa behind her.
Cheeta Ching was rarely at a loss for words. But now she found herself staring dumbly at her numb forefinger and thumb, which had been holding the confection.
They stung. And there was a little blood on the ball of her thumb, which had been scraped in passing.
"I . . . uh . . . oh . . . I . . ." she gulped through blood-red lips.
Then the room seemed to explode all around her.
Chapter 10
Before the second bullet shattered the panoramic glass window on the west side of the penthouse, everybody in the room reacted to the first shot.
Everyone, that is, except Cheeta Ching.
Remo Williams helped Cheeta to react by jamming her face deep into the sofa cushions. Cheeta yelped. Remo gave the back of her neck an extra squeeze and she promptly went to sleep.
The second bullet came, bringing with it a shower of plate glass like sharp, crystalline hail.
Harmon Cashman had already thrown himself across the body of Enrique Esperanza. He grabbed the silver tray of Oreos off the coffee table and cradled them from harm as well.
While he waited to die, he used his tongue to soak up cookie crumbs that had fallen like chocolate snow on his coat sleeves.
Remo grabbed both men up, and, tucking them under each arm, rushed to an inner room.
The Master of Sinanju burst in from the outside, crying, "Cheeta! My beloved!"
"I just put her down," Remo called back.
Chiun fell upon the limp anchorwoman, carried her inside in spindly arms, gently placed her on the bed. He turned to Remo.
"Why did you do that?" he demanded, eyes flinty.
"Put her to sleep? So she wouldn't see anything that would get on the news!"
The Master of Sinanju stamped a sandaled foot. "But you have deprived me of my moment of glory! I have rescued the one and only Cheeta, and she does not know!"
"Little Father," Remo said earnestly. "I promise to put in a good word for you when she comes to. Okay?"
Glass shattered in the outer room. It was followed by a snapping, ricochet sound.
"Come on. We have a sniper to slay," Remo urged.