"Demo is fine. Call me Demo."
"Oh, Demo, would you be a darling and get me a fresh tape from that arthritic cameraman of mine? He's down in the lobby-probably updating his resume."
"Sure," Remo said. "In fact, why don't I get fresh batteries for this thing while I'm at it?"
"That," Cheeta Ching said breathily, "is the most brilliant suggestion I ever heard. Anyone ever tell you you're a natural-born cameraman?"
"Not this week," Remo said brightly, taking the minicam from Cheeta's slow-to-unclench hands. He noted that the pistol grip was slippery with sweat when he took hold of it.
"I won't be a moment," Remo said. He winked. Cheeta beamed. In the corner, Chiun glowered.
Remo felt Cheeta Ching's eyes follow him as he floated to the elevator. On his way out, he bared his teeth. It made him look like he was smiling. No point in blowing this when it was going to be so easy.
Remo had barely reached the elevator when he heard a squeaky voice say, "I know something you do not."
"Oh, no," Remo said under his breath. "Chiun. Don't do this to me."
"What's that?" Cheeta asked suspiciously.
"Chiun . . ." Remo groaned.
"You have surrendered your precious tape to a notorious kleptomaniac," Chiun warned.
"What!"
"It is true," Chiun said loftily. "He is tricky-fingered. Notoriously tricky-fingered."
"He's just jealous!" Remo called back. He made his lips grin. By grinding his teeth, he seemed to smile wider. He hoped his eyes smiled with them. He doubted it very much.
The doors opened just in time. Giving Cheeta a limp little wave, Remo stepped back.
Cheeta, her eyes stricken, torn between hope and fear, waved back. Her wave was even more feeble than Remo's.
The doors snicked shut.
Remo breathed a sigh of relief as he rode the elevator down.
In the lobby, he called out, "Where's Cheeta Ching's cameraman?"
"Out committing suicide," someone said in a bored voice.
"Why?"
"He was too slow. He knows he's dead. He just doesn't want to die the Shark's way."
"Cheeta the Shark?" Remo asked.
"They call her the Korean Shark."
"They," Remo said, "have a higher opinion of her than I do."
Remo got a ripple of nervous laughter that broke the ice enough for him to ask, "I need two fresh videocassettes, and I'll pay well for them."
"How well?" a voice asked.
"A hundred each."
Minicams popped their ports and began disgorging black, plastic boxes. No two looked alike.
"I need ones that will fit this baby," Remo said, hefting his minicam. Half the tapes were withdrawn.
Remo exchanged two hundred-dollar bills for two cassettes. He went off into corner to change tapes.
A minute later he called out, "A fifty to the guy who shows me how to open this thing."
Remo hurried back to his hotel room, took the original tape, and shoved it down the front of the dead man's shirt. Then he tucked him back into bed, making sure his head was covered. He was beginning to smell, Remo found. He would deal with that later. Before he shipped the stiff back east to Folcroft.
Then he took the lobby route back to the penthouse. The sooner I get this over with the better, he told himself.
Cheeta Ching's stiff mask of a face almost cracked with joy when Remo sauntered into the penthouse, brandishing the two tapes. In fact, makeup flecks from the anchorwoman's chin rained onto the carpet like pink dandruff.
"Ta-dah!" he crowed.
"Excellent!" Cheeta said, grabbing the minicam. She popped a cassette in and handed the rig back to Remo.
"Now interview me," she ordered. "All of you. Ask me any question that comes to mind. Just leave my fallopian tubes out of it, okay?"
"What about Ricky's interview?" asked Harmon Cashman.
Cheeta looked blank. "Ricky?"
"The guy you came to talk to in the first place," Harmon pointed out. "You know, the candidate."
Cheeta's face fell. "Oh. That's right. I guess I should do that, too, shouldn't I?" She looked to Remo. Remo said, "I can get you all the videotape you could ever want. Or I can send my little friend, Chiun, to fetch it. He owes me a favor. A big one."
The Master of Sinanju drank in this spectacle with widening eyes. His face was ashen, the wrinkles flattening in shock.
"Augh!" he said, storming from the room.
That left the coast clear for the interview. Remo got the minicam going, and Enrique Espiritu Esperanza took a seat opposite Cheeta Ching.
The interview began. Cheeta was obviously distracted. At one point she noticed the blood on her thumb, and began sucking on it. Remo made sure he captured the precious sight on tape.
When it was over, Remo realized he had learned almost nothing about Enrique Esperanza that he hadn't already known. And he knew almost nothing about the man.
"Got enough?" Remo said doubtfully.