"This is not what my inmost eye tells me," Delpha warned.
"My ass," Remo said.
A crowd was collecting behind the ground-floor display windows of the skyscraper, where the boutiques and highpriced antique stores were. Others milled about the atrium lobby aimlessly.
Remo had never seen such forlorn faces. Some were calling out, but Remo couldn't hear the words.
He walked up to the glass of a window display.
"Remo," Chiun admonished. "Be careful. . . ."
"Relax, I'm just going to check this out."
Approaching, Remo lifted both hands to the glass. He set himself in case his highly attuned nervous system encountered something it could not handle, and he had to retreat fast.
His fingers were reflected in the glass. They approached one another's mirror image. At the point when they should have touched, both sets kept going. His fingers seemed to be swallowing each other.
Despite himself, Remo felt the hairs on the back of his neck lift and stiffen.
More incredibly, a part of the crowd inside, seeing how easily Remo's hand had passed through the seemingly solid glass, began beating their fists against the inner glass walls.
Their hands did not go through. In fact, the glass clearly wobbled in its frame from the strong blows.
"This is weird," Remo said, withdrawing his hands. They looked okay. He returned to the others.
"Do you still doubt that dark forces are at work?" Delpha inquired coolly.
"There's a scientific explanation," Remo insisted, frowning at the tower.
"No science of man can account for this."
"It's like a two-way mirror," Remo decided aloud. "You know, where the light goes through one way but not the other, so it's a mirror on one side and clear glass on the other."
"That makes no sense whatsoever," Cheeta Ching said snippily.
Remo frowned. "It's just a working theory. The light bulb wasn't invented in a day, you know."
Delpha lifted her hand of glory to the sky and waved it back and forth, getting oily smoke into their nostrils.
"Ia! Ia! Shub-Niggurath!" she howled. "Oh, All-Mother, we wish to communicate with the cameraman who disappeared into your nurturing earth."
"What is this crap?" Remo demanded.
"Shh, Remo!" Chiun hissed. "It is a kut."
Remo understood kut. It was Korean for "seance."
"This is loopy," he growled.
Chiun whispered, "Some matters must be dealt with in the traditional manner. Let the mudang work her white magic. It may not be Korean, but there may be some usefulness in it."
"How do you know it's not black magic, Little Father?"
Chiun shrugged. "She is white. What other kind of magic can she work?"
Delpha closed her eyes. Her face began to contort.
"She's in touch with higher forces," Cheeta said breathlessly.
"Looks like she's having a standing orgasm to me," Remo muttered.
Delpha's next words were incomprehensible. They weren't English or Korean. Remo decided they were probably witch, and therefore not important.
Delpha swayed like a palm tree that had been dipped in tar. Her face warped and twitched as her mouth chanted inarticulate phrases.
Then her eyes jumped open.
"I have seen! I have communed with the greater wisdom."
"What? What?" Cheeta demanded.
Delpha turned to Cheeta. "I have seen inside your womb."
"No!"
"Yes! It is a boy!"
Hearing this, Chiun turned to Remo, smiling happily. "Did you hear, Remo? A boy! A strapping Korean boy. I have always wanted a male child."
"The skyscraper!" Remo snapped. "Remember the skyscraper? We're here to figure out what the dingdong hell is going on with this stupid skyscraper."
Joyous faces collected themselves, sobered, and the three celebrants reluctantly returned to the matter at hand.
"Did you communicate with anyone about the mystery?" Cheeta wanted to know.
"I have heard a name spoken by the winds that whistle through this Tower of Babel."
"What name?"
"It begins with an R."
"The second name begins with an R," Delpha added.
"R . . . R . . ." Cheeta repeated, frowning. "A name that begins with an R . . ." Her smooth brow furrowed. "It's on the tip of my tongue."
"Try Randal Rumpp," Remo offered acidly.