There was a knock at the door. A timid knock. Then a small voice called through the panel, "Mr. Yung Man? Sorry about the electricity. I was told that I should give you a message from your son. He said to cut the electricity first because you never answered the phone and might be watching television, in which case you'd never hear me knock because of your hearing problem..."
"Go away, idiot," Chiun called. "You have the wrong person. You are speaking to the Master of Sinanju, who can hear a blade of grass grow outside his window. Begone."
"But your son, Remo, asked me to give you a message."
The startled hotel manager suddenly found himself staring into a wrinkled face where he could have sworn a closed veneer door had stood only a second before. There was a door, then there was no door, just the old Oriental in the silk bathrobe. But no sound or motion of the opening of the door.
"Where is my son?" demanded the old Oriental. "What message does he send?"
"He— he's sick. He's at a phone booth next to a Burger Triumph stand on the main highway leading to Chickasha, just south of here. He said you should come right away."
"Begone and call me a taxi car. I will be down shortly. And I will expect my machine to be working again when I return."
* * *
The cabby had had stranger fares before— he thought. First there was this old Chinese character who came flying out of the hotel and as he bounded into the back seat, cried, "My son is ill, and you will take me to him instantly. I will pay you well for your speed."
"Okay, feller. Where is he?" He got the cab rolling.
"He is at a telephone, beside a place where they cook those disgusting meat things you creatures are always consuming."
"Say what?" asked the driver, who wondered what he'd landed by way of a fare.
"A burger thing."
"Oh, Burger Triumph. But which one? There's millions of 'em around these parts."
"The one on the road leading to Chickentown, due south."
"Chick— oh, Chickasha! That's good enough. We'll find him."
They found Remo seated with his back to a telephone booth. In front of him stood a huge roadside rubbish can overflowing with Burger Triumph wrappers, paper cups, and half-eaten cheeseburgers.
"Aiiee." The Master of Sinanju screamed when the cab pulled up to the booth and he beheld Remo semiconscious amid the litter.
Remo looked up with glazed eyes. Oddly, the glassiness made them look more alive than usual. He had seen so much death that it was as if his eyes had absorbed it.
"Little Father..." Remo mumbled. "I tried to get you by phone..."
"Never mind," Chiun snapped, looking from Remo to the overstuffed barrel. "You have outdone yourself this time, Remo."
"What's up? What's the matter with him?" the cabby asked.
"He has slipped back into utter degradation," Chiun said.
"Yeah, I can see that. Booze?"
"Worse."
"Worse?"
"Yes, he has gorged himself on filth. Forgetful of his heritage, he has reverted to whiteness."
"He does look kind of pale at that. If he's your son, that's pretty bad."
"He is not my son. He is a filthy white meat-eater who has violated centuries of tradition. And for what? For hamburgers. Remo, you must have eaten over a hundred hamburgers." Chiun's strident voice lapsed into puzzled plaintiveness. "Why, Remo? I thought you had passed that disgusting phase." Truthfully, this behavior made no sense. As part of his Sinanju training, Remo had long ago given up beef, and an unfortunate incident years ago in which he had almost died from eating a hamburger his metabolism was unable to accept cured him of any relapses to his pre-Sinanju days. In fact, Remo should be dead now, if those hamburger wrappings were any indication of his most recent meal.
"I am waiting for an explanation, Remo," Chiun said sternly.
"Not burgers," Remo mumbled thickly. "Arms and legs. Look."
"What?" Chiun asked.
"He said look at his arms and legs," the cabby said helpfully.
"I know what he said, white. Return to your car."
Chiun bent down and rolled back one of Remo's pants legs and saw the redness of the skin, which contrasted to the paleness of Remo's bare arms and face and made him resemble a comic-book Indian.
"These are burns, Remo."
"Right. Burns. Whole body burned."
"Your arms are not burned. Nor is your face." Chiun examined Remo's other leg. The skin was seared. Not deeply, but thoroughly— although in some places the redness was lighter. The hairs on Remo's legs were not singed, which was strange. Remo's chest was burned also.
Examining Remo's arms, Chiun found that the upper biceps were seared, but only those parts above the short sleeves of his T-shirt. Below, the skin was unaffected. The burns might have been abnormally severe sunburns, except that the exposed parts of Remo's body, which logically would be the ones to experience sunburn, were normal. It was just the opposite.
Chiun, who had lived more than 80 years and had confronted nothing he could not understand, felt something like a chill run along his spine.
"How were you burned, Remo?" the Master of Sinanju said urgently. "What did this to you?"
"Lights. Pretty lights. Shiny. Burns."
Then Remo's head fell forward as he collapsed. Chiun scooped him up into his arms as if Remo were a baby.
"Quickly," Chiun called back to the driver. "We must get him back to the hotel."
"Let me give you a hand, old timer," the driver started to say, but before he could move, the old Oriental straightened up with Remo held tenderly in his arms, and carried him back to the cab without any effort at all.
"I'm not gonna ask how you did that," the cabby said into the rearview mirror as he drove back to Oklahoma City.
"And I am not going to tell you," Chiun said as he ministered to Remo in the back seat.
* * *
"I don't understand what it is you are saying, Chiun," Dr. Harold W. Smith was saying through the new telephone Chiun had demanded be installed in his apartment "because some lunatic had ruined the old one."