Cashman started to dance about the room. "It's a dead heat! Look at these polls! We have a chance! We have a chance!"
From the living room, a squeaky querulous voice came.
"Silence! An artist is at work!"
Harmon Cashman subsided. "Artist?"
"My very good friend Chiun is preparing new campaign posters," Enrique Esperanza said.
"What's wrong with the old?"
"They were in English and Spanish. These are in Korean, Chinese, and Japanese."
"This, I gotta see," said Harmon Cashman, snatching up a fresh cookie.
In the next room, the little Asian sat on a reed mat. Offset posters featuring the wide, benevolent face of Enrique Espiritu Esperanza were scattered about the rug. The old Korean was dipping a goose quill in a flat shallow stone that was dark with ink.
Holding the quill over a poster with a seemingly awkward grip, the old Korean stared at the blank space under the image of Esperanza.
Then he began painting broad strokes, which he bisected by thinner, more ornate ones. When he was through he lifted the quill, laid the poster aside, and exposed another one in its place.
The quill went to work again.
Harmon Cashman turned to his candidate. "Chinese?"
"I am not sure. I just know what he is writing."
"If you don't know the language, how can you tell what it says?"
Enrique Espiritu Esperanza smiled. "The word 'hope' is a universal one, my friend."
The posters began appearing in Chinatown, Little Tokyo, and Koreatown by ten o'clock.
The Master of Sinanju stood on a street in Koreatown, before a mural depicting Shin Saim-Dong, a mother figure from Korean folklore, surveying his handiwork.
On buildings and light poles all around, portraits of Enrique Esperanza stared out. Passersby paused to look, and read, then walked on.
The Master of Sinanju allowed himself a tight smile. It was working. Who could not vote for the man called "Esperanza," with the endorsement of the Master of Sinanju?
As he paused to drink in his triumph, a pair of young Koreans dressed in ridiculous jeans and Western shirts walked past.
"Who the heck is the Master of Sinanju?" one asked the other.
"Search me."
Chiun's eyes went wide. Were these Koreans, or Japanese wearing Korean faces?
An old woman strolled by, laden with bundles. Her back was bent with a lifetime of cares, and her hair was the color of steel wool. She stopped before a light pole and blinked owlishly at the poster there.
Chiun approached. He cleared his throat respectfully.
"This says that the candidate Esperanza is endorsed by no less than the Master of Sinanju," he said politely. "How could one not vote for such a man?"
The old woman spat. "It is a trick. The Masters of Sinanju are long dead. Besides, of what value is the recommendation of a pack of killers and thieves?"
"We were never thieves!" Chiun howled.
"Do not shout at me, old man."
"I am not shouting, you bony cow! I am spreading enlightenment. You must be from the lazy south."
"And you from the cold and bitter north."
"Southern farmer's wife!" Chiun fumed.
"Northern fishmonger!" snapped the old woman, storming off.
Face tight, the Master of Sinanju retreated to the mural of Shin Saim-Dong. He looked up at the benevolent features, her hair tied up in the traditional ch'ok, delicate hands properly resting in the lap of her kimono.
It was a good face, he saw. A country face. Solid and of the earth. At least some traditions were honored, in this degenerate colony of his countrymen.
Perhaps, Chiun thought, when the election was done with, he would take up residence here. It would be fitting. His former home had been confiscated by his emperor, due to yet another transgression on Remo's part. He would need a new home. Perhaps here. Once the people were reeducated, they would make good subjects. Of course, the Japanese and Chinese would have to be moved. It would not be seemly for a Master of Sinanju to dwell in too close proximity to such as they.
He was certain there would be a cultimulcheral way to accomplish this.
As the Master of Sinanju considered these weighty matters, he heard a tearing sound. He spurt.
A man--a white, beefy of face-was removing one of the posters the Master of Sinanju had carefully affixed to a wall.
Chiun flew to this man, demanding, "Why do you do this, white?"
"They gotta come down," the white grunted, ripping down the poster in stubborn strips.
"Explain!"
"No union bug."
"Bug?"
He pointed to a black spot on the poster, where the Master of Sinanju had obscured some white graffiti.
"Orders from my union chief. Posters without the bug come down."
With a flourish, the white stripped the wall bare of all remnants of the poster.
"There are many similar posters," Chiun pointed out, his voice steely. "You cannot remove them all."