At that moment, feet came pounding up the stairs.
"They're coming for me!" Barry Black said, jumping to his slippered feet. He got behind Remo, who wondered aloud, "What's this?"
"You're Secret Service, right?"
"Right."
"It's your job to take the bullet meant for the candidates, right?"
"Normally, yeah," Remo admitted.
"They're yours. Every bullet. With my best wishes for a happy next incarnation."
Frowning, Remo made for the door and threw it open, one second before the man on the other side could take hold of the cut-glass knob. Losing his balance, the other man fell forward. Remo caught him and pulled him into the room.
"Who are you?" he demanded.
"Who the hell are you?" the other shot back.
"Remo Drake. Secret Service."
"Where's your ID?'
"I answered that one already," Remo said.
"It's true," Barry Black said helpfully. "He answered that question. Remo's okay. Except that he knows about my secret plan to get elected."
"Well, then he's one up on me, and I'm in charge of this campaign," said the campaign manager.
"Trust me. You're better off not knowing," Remo said.
The Black campaign manager turned to his candidate and said, "Barry, they're reporting that Rona Ripper was just shot."
"Is that good or bad?" Barry Black asked, face warping as the brain behind it attempted to assimilate this bizarre turn of the Karmic wheel.
"She's alive."
"Where is she?" Remo demanded.
"They rushed her to St. John's in Santa Monica."
Remo started for the door.
Barry Black, Junior started after him, his voice anguished. "Wait, where are you going? You promised to protect me."
"Consider yourself protected," Remo growled, slipping down the stairs. "Reality won't ever touch you."
Chapter 20
When he reached him by phone, Remo Williams was surprised at the lack of concern in Harold W. Smith's lemony voice.
"Yes, I know about the Ripper shooting," he said crisply. "Regrettable."
"The third candidate shot in almost as many days, and that's all you can say?"
"You obviously did not catch the follow-up reports," Smith said dryly.
"I didn't catch any reports," Remo retorted. "I was in The Twilight Zone with Barry Black when his campaign manager came charging in with the news."
"Remo, Rona Ripper suffered a bullet wound at the hands of one of her personal security guards."
"Huh?"
"When the Black campaign was hit," Smith explained, "Miss Ripper ordered members of her entourage to arm themselves. One was cleaning his weapon in her presence, and it discharged. Rona Ripper suffered a flesh wound."
"So it wasn't an assassination attempt?"
"The weapon was a .22-caliber, and the projectile lodged in Miss Ripper's . . . ah . . . posterior."
"Rona Ripper was shot in the butt?" Remo said in disbelief.
"The security guard has apologized. Miss Ripper is suing him in return."
"Why doesn't that surprise me?" Remo growled, clapping a hand over his free ear to keep out that damn whistling. He couldn't understand it. He was at a phone booth in a completely different part of San Francisco, yet he was hearing it again.
"I do not know. What did you learn from Barry Black?"
"He's got a secret plan to win the election."
"Is it legal?"
"Oh, I don't know," Remo said. "Is impersonating a Republican against any law that you know of?"
"Impersonating . . . ?"
"Barry Black is a donkey in elephant's clothing," Remo said flatly. "He figures he can get elected as a Republican and then revert to being what he is-a horse's ass."
"This is unsettling," Smith said glumly.
"No argument there. It's so screwy that it means Black's not behind these political hits."
"Are you certain of that, Remo?"
"Barry Black is so flaky he belongs in dandruff commercials," Remo said flatly.
"I wonder . . ." Smith mused.