The window remained closed.
"Chiun. It's done."
Abruptly the front door was flung open, and out stepped the Master of Sinanju like a fussy teal hen. His face was bunched up like a yellow raisin.
Bustling up, he stopped, regarded the side of the Dragoon vehicle and cocked his head this way and that, eyes thinning to walnut slits.
"What do you think?" Remo asked proudly.
"Why does it have two heads?"
"The back is the head and the front is the tail."
"Why it is backward then?"
"It's not backward. It's supposed to be facing that way."
"It faces away from danger?"
"It's a decorative dragon, not a battle dragon."
"It is a cowardly dragon." Chiun squinted. "Its eyes are Western."
"You're imagining things. I drew it Eastern style."
"And its tail is English. I will not have an English dragon on my chariot."
"I don't know what you're talking about. It's a perfectly respectable dragon."
"And I detect Japanese influences in the scales."
"Those are barbs."
"Hah. Definitely Japanese. Erase it. For it offends my eyes."
"I can't erase that. I scored it with my own fingernails."
"It is no wonder then. Would you paint a seascape with a brush that lacks bristles?"
"That's not a good comparison."
"Erase it."
"It can't be erased. It's an etching."
"Then browbeat Smith into purchasing a new Dragon. I will not ride in this monstrosity. I would be shamed before all."
With that, the Master of Sinanju flounced back into the house, pointedly locking the door after him to signify that if Remo ever desired entry to Castle Sinanju again, he would have to mend his ways.
Picking up a spray can, Remo decided he would have to start all over again.
"Maybe I'd be better off letting my nails grow, after all," he grumbled, applying scarlet to his dragon.
AN HOUR AND TEN CANS of scarlet and metallic gold later, Remo's Dragoon looked as if it had been defaced by drunken graffiti artists. He had switched to Western style. The result-no dragon. Nothing that looked remotely like a dragon. Nothing that looked remotely like anything.
Seeing that his hands were flecked with paint droplets, Remo decided to call it a day. Maybe tomorrow was the day a dragon would come.
Reaching the door, Remo found it locked.
"Uh-oh."
No sense breaking in the door. Chiun would never let him hear the end of it.
Remo walked around the building. It was a hot summer day, so certain windows would be open for ventilation.
He found one at the far end, high up just under the eaves.
Remo looked around. No cars on the streets. No nosy people walking by. Perfect.
Taking hold of the fieldstone side, he let his fingertips sense the surface, absorbing its imperfections. It looked smooth to the eyes, but in fact was very rough. Crooking his fingers, Remo found tiny purchase points. He lifted. A bystander watching him would have said he was trying to pull the building down into its own cellar. In fact, that was the technique. Remo was not trying to climb the building. That would not work, strangely enough. But by attempting to drag the building down so the open window reached Remo's head height, a miracle happened.
From Remo's point of view, the building actually sank.
In reality, Remo was scaling the building using his fingers and toes.
His head came up to the open casement window, and he stuck his head in.
A stern face greeted him. "If you have bespattered my fine castle with paint, I will never forgive you," said Chiun in his squeakiest register.
And because Remo knew the next step might be slamming the window in his face, he sprang sideways to the next window, rolled in, snapped to his feet and faded off to one side while the Master of Sinanju pulled the other pane shut with a hard bang.
"Too late," Remo said.
Chiun whirled. For an instant Remo believed he had outsmarted his teacher, but Chiun pretended otherwise. He grasped his wrists with his long-nailed hands and the sleeves of his silken teal kimono met, concealing them from view.
"Your hands are filthy. Wash them this instant."
"My plan exactly," Remo said agreeably. "And while I'm at it, my nails look like they could use a good trimming."
Chiun's eyes narrowed to crafty slits, but he made no protest.
Going to the nearest bathroom-there were more than a dozen strategically placed throughout the sixteen-unit complex-Remo closed the door and gave his hands a good scrubbing with pumice soap. That took off the worst of the paint. The rest was ingrained into his skin.
Remo had a technique for that, too. Human skin consisted of a dead outer layer that sloughed and scaled off in the course of normal living. So Remo, after drying his hands, started dry-washing them vigorously.
His hands blurred. They even smoked a little. And into the washbowl tiny flecks of black material began precipitating. It was paint, turned black by the same friction that burned it off the skin of his fingers.