"Hush! I must study this white magic. There may be something yet to be learned of value."
"I've already picked up a magic pointer. Use triple-strength Right Guard."
The circle went around once. Nothing much seemed to happen. It went around twice. The chanters grew hoarse.
On the third go-round half the chanters were croaking like toads and frogs, and Delpha was no longer where she had been.
"I do not see her," Chiun muttered, stroking his wispy beard.
"I do not want to," Remo said.
Altogether, the circle went around twenty times before the last voice gave out and people began collapsing on the cold pavement. Enthusiasm waning, the circle simply broke apart into clots of people standing around, breathing hard.
Cheeta came out of the group, checked her cameraman, and approached Remo and Chiun.
"It didn't work," she panted.
"Gee. Wonder why?" Remo said airily.
"Maybe Delpha knows," Cheeta said vaguely, looking around. "Where'd she go?"
Remo shrugged. "Search us. She disappeared on the second doe-see-doe."
Cheeta's dark eyes went to the spot where Delpha Romher should have been standing. But she was no longer there. She was no longer anywhere on the broad, empty stretch of Fifth Avenue, where old newspaper fragments skittered along the gutters, impelled by gusty winds.
Cheeta's quick brain registered the absence of Delpha Rohmer. Her exquisitely made-up face quirked in surprise. Her bloodred lips puckered in astonishment.
But from her mouth there came only these words: "My tape! That bitch ran off with my tape!"
Remo asked, "Don't you mean 'witch'?"
Cheeta turned like a angry lioness. "I mean bitch with a capital B! Do you realize how much that tape is worth?"
"What's the sweat? You still have the second tape."
"Of over a hundred New Yorkers making fools of themselves. Me included." She shouted over to her cameraman. "You! Erase that tape. Right now, buster!"
The cameraman obediently popped the tape. Instead of trusting his machine's eraser head to fulfill Cheeta Ching's instructions, he smashed the tape under his pounding heel until loops of tape squirmed beneath his feet, like a nest of flattened brown worms.
For good measure, he kicked the tangled mess into an open sewer grate.
Chapter 18
Remo Williams found a pay phone, put a quarter in the slot, and promptly lost his coin.
The next three NYNEX pay phones also ate his quarters. It finally cost him a dollar twenty-five to reach the long distance operator, who promptly asked him for an additional two dollars and sixty-five cents for the first five minutes of his long distance call to Folcroft Sanitarium in Rye, New York.
When Harold Smith's lemony voice came over the telephone, Remo said, "Bad news, Smitty. The Rumpp Tower is still an intangible asset of the Rumpp Organization. "
"You can uncover nothing?"
"It's there, but it's not there. We went in, fell into the subbasement, and had to dig out again."
"Did anyone see you?"
"Only Cheeta Ching."
Smith's voice went stiff as a graham cracker. "Miss Ching is there?"
"Yeah, and she and Chiun have picked up where they left off."
Smith groaned. "Oh, no. Has security been compromised?"
"It's worse than that," Remo said cheerfully, enjoying getting a rise out of the colorless Harold Smith. "She has Chiun convinced that they are expecting their first child."
"My God! Chiun is the father. Do you know what this means?"
Remo rolled his dark eyes. "Do I ever. The rest of my life is going to be ruined by that lemon-faced shark. "
"Remo," Smith said urgently, "I want you to get Chiun away from that woman. Away from the Rumpp Tower. Regroup. We will look into this from other angles. "
"You calling us back to Folcroft?"
"No. Find a hotel. Contact me after you register."
"I'll give it a try, but Chiun's got Cheeta calling him 'grandfather.' This could be long-term problem."
"Is there anything else?"
"Did I tell you about the witch?"
"Witch?"
"Delpha Rohmer. Name excite a memory chip?"
Remo heard Harold Smith's fingers making hollow clicking sounds on his ever-present computer keyboard.
"I have her as the official witch of Salem, Massachusetts."
"You have her right."
"What is her role in this?" Smith asked sharply.
"As far as I can see, professional glory-hound. She ripped off one of Cheeta's precious videotapes."
"Is there anything on it that should concern the organization?"