"I have to rush this to editing in time for the five-o'clock feed. Coming?"
"I'm not hungry," Remo said, straight-faced.
"I'll be in touch, Nemo."
"Demo."
"Get your resume together."
"Count on it," Remo said, waving Cheeta off.
After she had gone, the Master of Sinanju reentered the penthouse.
"Never have I been so humiliated in all my life," he huffed.
"Wait'll I call in my marker," Remo said dryly.
"Augh!" said Chiun, storming out into the smog-laden air once more.
Remo started for the elevator. "Chiun will keep an eye on you," he told Enrique and Harmon Cashman.
"Where are you going?" Cashman asked.
"I got a package to mail to the folks back home, and I want to hit the post office before it closes."
Chapter 12
That evening, the second attempt to assassinate gubernatorial candidate Enrique Espiritu Esperanza led the BCN Evening News with Don Cooder.
There was no tape shown. Instead, after an opening background piece, they went to a satellite hook-up interview between Don Cooder and Cheeta Ching. Millions of viewers nationwide were treated to a rare view of the back of the anchor's thick helmet of black hair and the sight of Cheeta Ching, teeth on edge, answering harsh questions.
"Cheeta. About this alleged second attempt . . ."
Cheeta glowered. "It was not alleged. I was there!"
"True. But I was not. So let's say 'alleged.' The sniper, he was shooting at random, was he?"
"No! He was shooting at me! He grazed my thumb."
Cheeta Ching held up her heavily bandaged thumb for ninety million Americans to behold.
Don Cooder pressed on. "What about the candidate? Was he frightened? Obviously cowed? Did he wet his pants?"
"I didn't notice," Cheeta admitted glumly. "I was too busy protecting my reproductive system with my body. I lose that, and there will be no future Cheeta Chings to carry on the superanchorwoman tradition I single-handedly pioneered."
Don Cooder swung around in his seat, gave the camera a steely look, and said, "Obviously, Cheeta has yet to recover from her remarkable brush with death. Speaking for her colleagues here at BCN, I wish her godspeed and good news on the fertility front. More news, after this."
"They didn't even show the interview!" Harmon Cashman complained, jumping up from his seat.
Enrique Esperanza patted the air with his hands. "Harmon, sit down please. It is of no moment. There will be other interviews."
"I'll bet that damn Cooder killed the piece. You could just see the jealousy crackle between those two."
Harmon Cashman resumed his seat in the living room of the penthouse suite overlooking Los Angeles, now a forest of fiery towers in the setting sun. Absently, he took an Oreo cookie off a silver tray and gave it a hard squeeze. Creme filling oozed out, and he began licking it. His eyes went to the tiny wisp of a Korean, who stood out on the parapet, taking in the blazing sunset.
"I don't get it. Why bring that little guy into the campaign organization?" he asked.
"He is Korean. We must reach out to all people, all colors, if we are to win."
"You know, Ricky, no matter what you do, you're still a long shot."
Enrique Espiritu Esperanza laughed good-naturedly. "I do not mind being a long shot. Just so long as I am not shot before election day."
Harmon Cashman stopped licking. "Who the hell could be trying to kill you? It doesn't make sense."
"Perhaps someone who sees that I am a threat to the established order. You know, Harmon, that this state simmers with racial tension."
"Yeah, white people are petrified at the numbers of illegals coming across the border, and jealous of the Asians coming in from Hong Kong. The black people see their piece of the pie being gobbled up by everyone else. One day, it may just explode."
"Not if all these people come together."
"Never happen."
"What if they are brought together?" asked Enrique Esperanza, taking his empty brown fists and bringing them together, with a sound like tupperware containers bumping.
"By you?"
Enrique Espiritu Esperanza nodded. "By me."
"Look," Harmon said, "you got the Hispanic vote sewed up, if you stick with that. The white liberals will help. Yeah. Might even bring us in second. But you go after the black and Asian vote, and you're wasting your time. Hell, most of the blacks don't even vote. And the Asians are too busy holding down two-three jobs to have the time."
"Harmon, do you know why I chose Los Angeles County to launch my campaign?"
"Sure. Because its got a humungous Hispanic population. No mystery there."
"No. Because L.A. County is the blueprint for the future of this country. The black, Asian, and Hispanic populations are mushrooming. The white people are in decline. In twenty, thirty, perhaps fifty years, all of America will be like this."
Harmon Cashman paused in the act of separating an Oreo sandwich in halves, exposing the white creme filling. "It will?"
"These are the trends. I have studied them. Carefully."
Harmon Cashman put down his Oreo. He was from the South, had grown up in Virginia. He remembered the Old South. How intolerant it had been. He also remembered how much safer it had been.
Enrique Espiritu Esperanza went on. "White people, whom I call blancos, are growing nervous. They see their cultural dominance in decline. They fear for their future, and the future of their children and grandchildren. But there is nothing they can do. Immigration is immigration. New children are born every day, in all colors. Their skin colors happen not to be white."
"My God!"