"Okay, never mind that. What do you propose doing about this Cheeta problem?"
"She likes you."
"That depends. If she figured out I palmed her tape, she may want to strangle me with piano wire."
"I wish you to arrange a tryst for Cheeta. A romantic encounter. She will heed your request. But I will go in your stead."
"Sorry, John Alden."
"Why not?"
"One, you'll be made a fool of. Her name may be Cheeta, but it might as well be Ch'amnari."
"Please."
Remo frowned. Behind him, the crowd roared the name "Esperanza." The speech was ending.
"I'll think about it," he said. "First, I want you to drop this 'treasurer' crap."
Chiun stiffened. "Is this the boon you wish to invoke?"
Remo thought about that. "No. At least not yet. Smitty wants you to watch over Esperanza. But that's as far as it goes."
"Then you will not speak to Cheeta on my behalf?" Chiun inquired.
"Little Father," Remo said wearily, "I sincerely hope to avoid Cheeta Ching for the rest of my natural life."
"That is your final word?"
"No. Let me think about it. Okay?"
"I will accept that. But not for long."
"We friends again?"
"For now."
Remo smiled. Chiun's face remained set. "I must return to the side of my patron, Esperanza," he said.
"You know, he might be another Ch'amnari, too."
"What makes you say that?" Chiun said thinly.
"He offered you the treasurer's post. Just like that. Sounds too good to be true."
"I have delivered to him Koreatown, and all the votes that come with it," Chiun said loftily. "This is how empires are built."
"Just watch your step."
"That lesson," Chiun said loftily, "I learned long ago in old Pyongyang." The Master of Sinanju turned and padded toward the roof trap, disappearing down and out of sight.
Remo Williams watched his Master go.
"Great," he muttered. "I'm stuck in the middle of a love triangle between the Wicked Witch of the East and the only person I care about."
And down below the roaring crowd cried, "Esperanza!"
Chapter 16
By the next morning, the name Enrique Espiritu Esperanza was on the lips of every man, woman, and child in California. And beyond.
"We're hot! Oh, we're so hot!" Harmon Cashman said enthusiastically. He had arrayed three rows of Oreo cookies on the breakfast nook table, and was separating them with a butter knife so that the creme centers were exposed, like cataracted whale eyes. "The numbers are starting to move our way! I am so amped!"
"It is time to widen our campaign," Enrique Esperanza decided.
Harmon Cashman began scraping the dry creme filling onto a bread dish, making a gooey little pile.
"We got L.A. County practically sewed up," he agreed. "The white-I mean blanco-campaign offices are reporting a flood of new volunteers and contributions. You got the white people thinking you're California's savior."
"I think we should next take the battle to San Francisco."
"Yeah. Barry Black's home turf. That ought to spook that Frisco flake good."
When he had every Oreo scraped clean, and a nice sweet pile of white creme filling, Harmon Cashman lifted the plate to his mouth and began licking.
He paused only once. To spoon a dab into his black coffee.
When he had licked the plate clean, he drank the coffee in one gulp.
"I hear the stores are having a run on these cookies wherever we've passed them out," Harman said, smacking his lips with relish. "Maybe we can get an endorsement out of the company. We must be buying them by the freight-train load, and I've never seen an invoice."
"They are donations," Esperanza said flatly.
"No kidding? That's better than an endorsement."
"I think so," said Enrique Esperanza, looking out at the San Gabriel Mountains, his voice as far away as their hazy peaks.
Barry Black, Junior had grown up in the California governor's mansion. He had first sat in the corner office, not behind the desk but bouncing on his father's knee.
Barry Black, Senior had been the first Democratic governor of California since the Great Depression. That had been in the 1950s.
It had taken until the 1970s for another California Democrat to occupy the corner office. That had been Barry Black, Junior.
The two terms Barry Black, Junior had served had almost ensured that California would not elect another Democrat to the governorship until the next Great Depression. If even then.
After a string of debacles, ranging from his attempts to protect the Medfly from an eradication program designed to save the state citrus crop to his proposal to put a Californian on Mars by the year 2,000 the man the press had dubbed "Governor Glowworm" had been turned out of office quicker than a shoplifter from a Wal-Mart.