"It is good to see you again, grandfather," Cheeta murmured.
"And you, child. The baby quickens?"
"Only due to your greatness," Cheeta returned.
"Am I hearing this?" Remo shouted. "I'm not hearing this! You're not the father, Chiun-are you?"
The wise hazel eyes of the Master of Sinanju looked over to the face of his pupil opaquely, and tracked beyond him.
His hands emerged from his sleeves. One birdlike claw of a hand lifted and curled, gesturing with a bony yellow finger.
"Remo. Who is this mudang I find you with?"
Remo looked over his shoulder. Delpha Rohmer stared back.
"Mudang?" Remo asked Chiun. His Korean was good, but not perfect.
"A white witch," replied Chiun.
"You are very wise to know me for what I am," Delpha intoned.
"He doesn't mean 'white' the way you mean 'white,' " Remo snapped.
"I can see that he is in contact with greater harmonies," Delpha returned. "His aura is perfect."
"Absolutely," Cheeta said. "He helped me unlock my burgeoning womanhood."
"You are both properly respectful," said the Master of Sinanju. His eyes went to Remo's. "Unlike some."
Remo put his hands on his lean hips. "Look. We're here to do a job. Let's do it."
"One moment, Remo. I must examine this artifact." The old Korean strode up to the hand of glory and sniffed the smoke being exuded by its shriveling black fingers.
He looked to Delpha. "The hand of a hanged man?"
Delpha nodded. "I dug it up. It's very old. But there was still enough fat in it to burn."
"That's sick!" Remo said.
"Sick would be to use a woman's hand," Cheeta inserted.
Everyone nodded in agreement except Remo.
"It is potent magic," Delpha said.
"Can it help me get my cameraman back?" Cheeta wondered, circling it. She lifted her minicam to one shoulder and captured the smoking member on tape.
"Don't tell me you nibbled on another one?" Remo asked pointedly.
"Silence, Remo!" Chiun spat. "Do not remind this poor creature of her recent misfortune."
"Misfortune? She's buried alive with her cameraman and she eats him."
"I did not eat my cameraman!" Cheeta blazed. "Whole . . . I just noshed on a piece he wasn't using."
"His leg?"
"He was dead. He wasn't about to jump up and run marathons."
"This is a perfectly reasonable thing, Remo," Chiun inserted. "Now be silent. We must be about our important work."
Delpha lifted welcoming hands. "It is our destiny to work together. The three of us."
Remo told Cheeta, "I guess that leaves you out. Sorry."
"I meant, the three of us who understand the elder wisdom," Delpha added imperiously.
Remo frowned. "What am I-the spear-carrier?"
"No. But you may carry the hand of glory."
"I'm not touching that."
"Remo," Chiun said flatly. "Carry the hand. Come, we will solve this mystery before it blights the entire city."
The three started off, Chiun flanked by the two women. Remo watched them go. He looked down at the smoldering hand of glory.
"Damn," he muttered, stooping to pick it up. "Why do I always end up with the short end of the stick?"
Chapter 7
Randal T. Rumpp had not gotten where he was in life by being timid. He had his brashness to thank for his steady rise to the princedom of Manhattan real estate, and just as surely to blame now that he had plummeted to the sad status of paper billionaire in such a stunningly short time.
He did not understand the freaky thing that had befallen the Rumpp Tower. He dimly understood that he was trapped, as was everyone who had had the misfortune to be caught within its narrow confines when the mysterious event occurred.
What Randal Rumpp did understand was that there had to be some way he could turn the situation to his advantage.
The phones shrilled in his ears so loudly he could barely hear himself think. In other rooms on this floor, they also were clamoring for attention.
Hanging up did no good. So Randal Rumpp, because doing something physical always helped his brain to work better, went around his luxurious, selfportrait-dense office and started taking them off the hook, one at a time.
Once in a while, he would check for a dial tone.
The first time he did this he got a weird voice crying plaintively, "Help! I am trapped in telephone!"
"My ass," said Randal Rumpp, going to the next phone.