Reaching into the medicine cabinet, Remo found a pair of nail clippers. They were extra-heavy-duty and custom-made out of drop-forged titanium. Since he now possessed fingernails that could score steel, Remo needed something tougher than the kind of clippers one could buy at K mart.
Carefully Remo began clipping his nails, starting with the smaller, easier ones. He worked from pinkie to thumb on his left hand. Switching hands, he naturally took the heavy clipper in his left hand and started with the thumb, then jumped to the pinkie and worked back from there. By the time he reached the nail he always saved for last-the extrahard, longish right index nail-he had a tiny pile of shavings on the porcelain sink counter that, if swallowed, would kill a rhinoceros.
The long nail was the tough one. If Remo cut it too short, he risked disarming a useful weapon. Through the years Remo had learned to enter locked buildings by scoring window glass with his right index nail. It was a handy tool to have, even if he would never admit this to the master of Sinanju.
Once Remo had inadvertently cut the nail too short, and for a solid month felt as if he had chopped off his right index finger to the knuckle. That was how much that nail was a part of him.
So Remo carefully trimmed the nail back, leaving enough to be useful. The titanium blade sounded like a tiny bolt cutter at work.
The nail came off in a perfect half-moon sliver and joined the tiny pile.
An impatient knock came at the door.
"You are hogging the bathroom," complained Chiun.
"There's others," Remo called back.
The door hammered under an angry fist. "I wish to use that one."
"All right, all right. I'm done," said Remo, sweeping the nail clippings into a wastebasket.
Opening the door, Remo stepped back as the Master of Sinanju hurried in. His eyes went to Remo's hands.
"Show me your hands. Are they clean?"
"Oh, get off it."
Chiun snapped his palms together. "Show me."
Dutifully Remo offered his hands for inspection.
"I feel like I'm back at the orphanage," he grumbled as the Master of Sinanju turned his hands palm up, then down again, scrutinizing the pale skin for paint flecks and under the nails for stubborn grime.
He flinched at what he saw.
"You have cut them!" Chiun squeaked.
"Sue me."
"It is a wonder you do not chop off your fingertips, you pare the nails so cruelly."
"They say if you cut back its branches, a tree will flourish."
"You are not a tree."
"And you are not my father. Get off my nails."
Relinquishing Remo's hands, the Master of Sinanju made a frowning face.
"You are beyond redemption. Now go. I will clean up here."
"I didn't leave a mess. There's nothing to clean up."
"Go, go," said Chiun, shooing Remo from the room.
More than happy to get off so lightly, Remo walked the mazelike corridors of the place that had been home almost as long as any other place in his vagabond existence.
Well, it wasn't so bad sometimes, he thought as he headed down to the first-floor kitchen, where the fresh scent of rice steaming wafted up. He and Chiun had come a long way from the days when, as part of his contract with Harold Smith, the Master of Sinanju was obligated to liquidate Remo should CURE be compromised. Now they were as close as father and son and, while they had their arguments, both loved and respected each other---Remo Chiun more than Chiun Remo. Remo didn't care how long the Master of Sinanju grew his nails. Or how flamboyant the kimono of the day was. All Remo wanted was to be left alone, to dress as he wished. A clean T-shirt and chinos were just fine with him, day in and day out. What he saved in wardrobe he put in shoes-expensive Italian loafers and no socks, thank you very much.
It was a simple life, Remo thought as he walked down the hall, picking up a universal TV remote from a small table. As he passed open doors, he used it to turn on the TV sets that were a fixture in almost every room, one by one.
This way he caught the news as made his way to the kitchen and the alluring scent of rice. Chiun could turn them off later.
Remo reached the stairs when something said by a network newscaster made him stop.
"Amtrak officials say the cause of the deadly derailment is unknown at this time."
He ducked into the room.
"More after this," the newscaster said.
Before the picture faded, Remo noticed the graphic floating beside the anchor's head. It said Amtrak Derailment. There was a digitized picture of a flopped-over Amtrak train in the box.
"Damn," said Remo.
He switched channels. NBC was still in its precommercial opening segments.
"At this hour rescue operations are still underway in the Connecticut seaport town of Mystic, but with darkness closing in, officials say that recovery and rescue will only become more difficult."
"What train?" said Remo.
"Now this," said the anchor.
Remo flicked stations again and got a gourmet-catfood commercial featuring a dancing Siamese in a tux waltzing with a fully grown woman in a floor-length dress. It looked like a public-service announcement for human-feline interspecies romance.
Further up the channels, Remo caught live CNN footage of a big yellow crane at the scene of the rail accident. The tracks were twisted all out of shape. There were cars on the track bed, cars in the water and the live remote newswoman was saying that this was the worst passenger accident since Bayou Canot-whatever that was.
"At this hour the Merchant's Limited death toll stands at sixty-six and bodies are still being pulled from the water. The ten-coach train left Boston's South Station at 7:00 p.m. and was two hours into its run to Washington when it encountered catastrophe."
"Oh, man," said Remo, grabbing a telephone. He thumbed the 1 button, and the call, after rerouting through three states to foil tracing, rang the contact telephone on Harold Smith's desk at Folcroft Sanitarium. The line ran and rang and rang, and Remo knew by the eighth ring that wherever Harold W Smith was, he was either dead or unconscious. For the foolproof code line also rang his briefcase cellular, which, if Remo knew Smith, nestled under his pillow when he slept.
Harold Smith never failed to answer the CURE line.
Something was very wrong.
Chapter 5