"My loss, while great, has nothing to do with this," Chiun said. His face sagged. "Oh, Remo, I was afraid this might happen." His tufts of hair were thunderclouds of soft despair as he sadly shook his aged head.
Remo felt a twinge of concern. "Afraid what might happen?" he asked.
"Your grave affliction," the old man intoned. "It did not expire at the proper time. Oh, why did you tempt the gods as you did?" In the deepest crevices of his wrinkled face dwelled a look of dark concern.
Remo racked his brain. He couldn't remember ticking off any deities lately. "Okay, I give up," he said finally with a shrug. "What are we talking about?"
"Your Master's disease," Chiun explained. "The Hindu curse imposed by one of their gods that makes you feel it is your responsibility and yours alone to stamp out all injustice in the world. It occurs in every fifteenth generation of Sinanju Masters. I had hoped that you would break the cycle, since you are not from the village proper, but rather from the more remote outskirts of town."
"Newark, New Jersey's about as far on the fringes of Sinanju's suburbs as you can get, Chiun," Remo pointed out. "And I thought that curse was lifted back when we were in Africa a few months ago."
"It should have been," Chiun said. "But like a fool you could not rejoice in your recovery. In the dying days of your illness, you did open your big, foolish mouth and implore all the gods at once to leave you as you were."
Remo bit his lip. "Woops. I did kind of do that, didn't I?" he said.
"Yes, you did," Chiun confirmed darkly. "And I fear that your prayers have been answered." Remo's brow dropped as he considered the old man's words. "I don't know about any of that fruity stuff," he said. "But if it's true, it'd be just my luck. All the times I prayed for parents or a new bike when I was at the orphanage, heaven's phone was off the hook. First time I open my yap without thinking, bammo."
Chiun raised a thin eyebrow. "The first time you opened your mouth without thinking was the first time you opened your mouth," he said aridly. "And back at the almshouse where you frittered away your youth, you were praying to the false God of the carpenter's dowagers. This time, your ill-chosen words fell on the right ears."
"I don't know, Chiun," Remo said skeptically. "I don't think my attitude's the product of any thousand-year-old curse. I think this is just the way I am."
"It is," Chiun said. "Now. And thanks to you, it is probably how you will always be." In a flurry of robes he rose to his feet. He gathered up their empty bowls and breezed over to the small sink.
As Chiun ran rusty water over their dishes, Remo remained seated on the floor.
"I don't think it's a bad thing," the younger man said after a few long moments of consideration. "I mean, this job rots. I shouldn't be blind to what's going on. So I get mad every once in a while. So what?"
"Mad is acceptable. Madness is not," Chiun said. "I suppose the best we can hope for, given the circumstances, is that you understand the difference some of the time."
"Maybe we can do that one better," Remo offered. He took a deep breath. "We could leave," he exhaled.
At the sink, Chiun slowly turned. His hooded eyes showed no emotion. "Leave what?" he asked.
"Leave here. America. Quit," Remo said. "Quit Smith, quit CURE. Go to work for somebody else. It's tough watching this country go to hell in a handbasket. Maybe it'd be good for me to go somewhere where I don't have to see it close up." His face turned sly. "I hear the melons are nice in Persia this time of year."
Chiun pursed his papery lips. "Persian melons grow properly only in Persia. They have been nothing but seeds and rind since the time of the Parthians."
"Okay, Mesopotamia. You like Mesopotamia, right? Didn't Master Hupka the Lesser even invent the wheel for them he liked them so much? We can go there."
"Hupka gave them the wheel to facilitate the transport of tribute back to Sinanju," Chiun said guardedly. "To this day we have not been given proper credit for its invention. However, Mesopotamia is now Iraq. And no matter what you now say, you would never be satisfied working for them."
"Yeah, Saddam Hussein is kind of a prick," Remo agreed. "Tell you what, throw a dart at a map. Wherever it lands, we pull up stakes and go there."
Chiun shook his speckled head. The gentle tufts of cotton-candy hair fluttered delicately at the motion.
"I am too old to be uprooted by your whims," he said. "America is the only nation currently able to afford both of us, and so we stay here. Someday you will leave this land. Perhaps that time will not come until the day you are forced to inter my bones with those of my ancestors. But I will not leave now because you wish to flee fate."
Remo accepted his words with a somber sigh. "Okay," he said. "But next time you're itching to leave, don't come carping to me." He rose fluidly to his feet. "I'm gonna go rent us a van." Turning from the kitchenette, he left the motel room.
Once he was gone, Chiun turned an eye to the closed door. On his parchment face was a look of deep concern.
Remo was making his life much more complicated than it had to be. As usual.
Eventually, the old man tore his hazel eyes from the cheap wood veneer. On silent, shuffling feet, he went to the table to collect their two empty teacups.
WHEN HAROLD SMITH returned to his secretary's office, he found someone waiting for him.
The nervous young man Smith had nearly knocked over in his haste to get down to the security corridor was seated on a drab green vinyl chair near one of Mrs. Mikulka's well-tended rubber plants.
Smith's thin lips tightened as the man rose to greet him.
"Dr. Smith," the visitor said, offering his hand as he stood. The cast on his right wrist jutted from the end of his sleeve. "I didn't realize it was you when we..." He pointed awkwardly over to the door where they'd nearly collided. "Can we talk in your office?"
Smith seemed unhappy for yet another intrusion in his normal routine. "Who are you?" the older man asked.
"He's a salesman, Dr. Smith," Mrs. Mikulka offered from her desk. "Medical supplies, wasn't it?"
The man floundered for a moment. "Well, yes," he said. He seemed unhappy with the admission.
Smith's look of displeasure become one of bland impatience. "You have no appointment," he said.
"This is kind of awkward," the man said, lowering his voice. He glanced at Smith's secretary. "I really couldn't phone ahead. If you could just give me a minute, you'll understand why."
"Perhaps," Smith said. "But I am quite satisfied with all of our current suppliers. I suggest you leave your business card with my secretary."
The man was growing frustrated. "I-I don't have one," he said. He found that he was clenching his teeth as he spoke. Forcing himself to relax, he offered a tight smile. "Just one minute, Dr. Smith. Please. I promise you, you won't be disappointed." Smith's face soured. He glanced at his old Timex. "I will give you no more than three min-" he began.
He got no further. The jangling of an oldfashioned phone sounded from his office.
The Folcroft director looked to the door, annoyed with himself for having left it ajar. The ringing blue contact phone sat in full view on his desk.
"Please wait here," Smith said to the salesman. Before the salesman could object, the older man marched from the room, closing the door behind him.
As the door slammed shut in his face, the young man scowled. Exhaling impatience, he took up his post in the corner waiting-room chair.
"Dr. Smith is a very busy man," Mrs. Mikulka offered thinly. The blue-haired woman didn't seem to approve of the young man's impatience.
"I can see that," the visitor muttered tightly. He did not look at the secretary as he spoke. Rummaging on a small table near his elbow, he found a two-decade-old Reader's Digest. Slouching in his chair, he began reading an article about the upcoming 1980 presidential race.
SMITH PICKED UP the phone on the third ring. Through the big picture window at his back, winter wind attacked the choppy white waves of Long Island Sound.
"Smith," he said, settling into his chair. As he spoke, he noted with a frown that he had left his computer on.
"What's with answering on the third ring?" Remo's voice said by way of greeting. "You slowing down in your old age, Smitty?"
"I was otherwise occupied," the CURE director replied. "There is a potential problem with one of our patients. I fear the Dutchman is beginning to regain consciousness."