Beep.
"Call me at Folcroft. Please."
"How many 1's in that message?" Remo asked Chiun.
"Four."
"Japanese have trouble with their 1's. Don't tell me different. That's Harold Smith."
Chiun's face puckered up. His eyes narrowed. His fingers clenched and unclenched. All except the right index finger, which he kept curled.
"Go outside," he spit. "Call Fortress Folcroft from a pay telephone. If he lives, say nothing of the ronin to him. If it is a trick, you will know it because the answering voice will say 'moshi moshi.'"
"What is a moshi moshi?" Remo asked.
"A Japanese hello."
"I'll be back," said Remo, popping down the stairs.
Chiun called after him, "If you are ambushed, at least you have no fingernails to lose. But mind that you retain your fingers. If you lose one, I will never speak to you again."
"What if he throws a finger in my face?"
"Better you lose a finger than allow the House to be doubly shamed. If you lose a finger, throw it back in his face, Remo."
"Do thumbs count?" Remo wondered aloud.
"Mine, yes. Yours, not at all. Now go."
Remo went out the rear entrance and crossed the street to the Oriental market at the intersection of three streets. There was a pay phone bolted to the brick building. Slipping a dime into the slot-Massachusetts had to be the last state in the Union where the pay phones took dimes-Remo leaned on the 1 button.
He waited for the automatic connection.
The phone never rang. Instead, Smith's lemony voice said, "Remo?"
"I didn't hear it ring," Remo said suspiciously.
"That sometimes happens."
"How can you pick up a phone before it rings?" Remo asked, all the time matching the lemony voice against his memories of Harold Smith's distinctive voice.
"It did ring. On this end. The phone company has instituted a policy of dissynchronous rings. The ring you hear on your end of the line is not the ringing on this end."
"Why would they do that?" Remo asked, thinking it sure sounded like Harold Smith. Right down to the constipated consonants.
"It is to foil persons calling relatives long-distance and hanging up after one or two rings as a signal they have arrived safely. The phone company's lines were being used without charge."
"They sound as cheap as you," Remo said.
Harold Smith cleared his throat. "Actually it is very thrifty of them."
"It is you, Smitty!" Remo exploded.
"Who else would it be?" Smith asked querulously.
"We heard about the train wreck and went bombing down. Three different people said you died."
"A man named Howard Smith was killed. Coincidence."
"Well that coincidence cost me my Dragoon. Someone stole it while we were combing the wreckage."
Smith groaned. Then he said, "I must ask you to return to the wreck."
"Why?"
"My briefcase was, er, left behind."
"I know. I salvaged it."
"You have it!" Smith's voice skittered on the dangerous edge of sounding pleased, and Remo's suspicions flared up again.
"Yep. Figured I couldn't let it fall into innocent hands."
"Its secrets are invaluable."
"Actually it's as wet as a drowned cat. I was thinking of the rescue workers who would've been maimed if they tried to pick the lock."
"It would have served them right," Smith said flatly.
"Spoken like a man with a new lease on life. You know, Smitty, I hear about people having close shaves who see the world differently afterward. I guess we can't add you to that happy list."
"I had a near-miss. Near-misses do not count. The world has not changed in my absence."
"Well, Chiun and I thought you were dead."
"I am not dead. And I have an assignment for you."
"What's that?"
"These train derailments. It is time we looked into them."
"Just because you nearly died in one? Aren't we a little behind the curve?"
"I have been following them for over a year. I suspect sabotage."
"I suspect mismanagement. Didn't the government get involved in Amtrak years ago?"