One by one Chiun repeated the telephone numbers back to Remo, who then dialed and asked whoever answered, "Does your tour go by Squirrelly Chicane's place?"
When he got a yes, Remo asked for the tour company address and they drove there.
They were in luck. As soon as they pulled up, a tour bus was pulling out, and Remo got behind it.
The bus led them to the seaside community of Malibu, and they listened for the amplified voice of the driver to announce Squirrelly Chicane's residence.
Over the sound of the bus's engine, the driver started to say, "And just up the road ahead is the home of the multitalented Squirrelly-"
The caterwauling of an ambulance overtook them, forcing Remo to pull over. The bus got out of the way, too, and the white-and-orange ambulance roared up the road marked Private.
"Uh-oh," said Remo.
"What is it?" asked Lobsang, his voice stricken. "What means that awful sound?"
"It is an ambulance," explained Chiun, tight of voice. "In this land it serves but two purposes-to fetch the sick to a doctor and to carry off the dead."
"It is going to the place where the Bunji Lama dwells," muttered Kula uneasily.
Lobsang swallowed hard. "If she has died, we must begin the search anew."
"Quickly, Remo!" squeaked Chiun. "We must save the Bunji Lama from death, else our quest will go on for years to come."
And Remo, trying to keep the dead smell of the old Bunji Lama out of his lungs, floored the accelerator.
SQUIRRELLY CHICANE LAY on a throw rug before her environmentally correct fireplace with her eyes closed, trying to align her chakras. Maybe if she got there lined up, her spine would fall into place. It was a good theory and it might have worked, but for some reason she was seeing double. Even with her eyes closed. Maybe it was the bhang.
She opened her eyes. She was still seeing double. The flames were dancing in stereo just inches away from her pink nailed toes. Their crackling was as loud as a California brushfire.
"This is great bhang," she said aloud. Everything was repeated, from her twenty-no, make that forty-toes, to her various Obies, Tonys, Oscars, Emmys and Grammys ranked upon the mantelpiece. She tried to remember how many Oscars she had won. Three, or was it four? It was hard to tell. She kept spares in every home she owned, from her Parisian pied-a-terre to her London flat.
She lay back, her vertebrae popping audibly with her every move.
"Maybe I should try a chiropractor," she told the high, white ceiling.
The phone rang. Imelda immediately brought it in and held the receiver to her face so Squirrelly needn't sit up and risk dislocating her spine.
"Hello?" she said through gritted capped teeth.
A low, ingratiating voice said, "Hello. How's my favorite sixty-year-old nymphet?"
"Warren! You remembered my birthday! How sweet."
"How could I forget?" The pause on the line was awkward. "So, now that you're sixty, wanna make it with me?"
"Warren! For God sakes, I'm your sister!"
"Yeah, but you're the only actress left in Hollywood I haven't slept with."
"Sue me, you satyr."
"Is that a no?"
"Yes."
"Is that a yes?"
"No."
"So, you'll think about it?"
"Hang up, Imelda," said Squirrelly, pulling away from the phone.
Imelda replaced the cordless phone on its base and left the room.
"And people think I'm a bit flipped out," muttered Squirrelly, who suddenly realized that she had sat up in surprise during the conversation.
She experimented with moving her legs and fell into such a spasm of writhing, twisting, screaming anguish that Imelda, fearing for her mistress, immediately called for an ambulance.
THE PARAMEDICS rushed in, took one look and one of them said, "Back spasm."
The other, sniffing the air and seeing Squirrelly's dilated eyes, added, "High as a kite, too."
They brought in a spine board and tried to strap her to it. But Squirrelly only writhed and screamed more loudly.
The paramedics were trying to figure out what next to do when a resounding bell-like voice punctuated by heavy footfalls that shook the pine flooring announced, "I am Kula the Mongol, possessor of herpes in abundance, and I will slay any Christian who defiles the Bunji Lama with his unworthy hands."
The paramedics looked up, saw a hulking Asian brandishing a silver dagger and immediately backed away.
"We don't want any trouble, friend," one of them said.
"And if you stand away from that woman," a squeaky voice added, "there will be none."
The next person to enter was a little wisp of an Oriental wearing a kimono of scarlet silk. His serious gaze fell upon Squirrelly Chicane, half-strapped to the spine board. With a shriek, he fell upon the board and flung it aside.
"Western medicine!" he said derisively. "It is fortunate that we arrived in time, before they inserted foreign objects down the Bunji Lama's throat or removed her ears."
"They remove the ears of the sick here?" Lobsang said.
"Western doctors are quacks. They believe it is their right to remove any organ or appendage once they pronounce it to be infested with cancer."
"Oh, right," said Remo. "Ear cancer. That's a real killer."
And in the middle of this a dreamy voice called up from the floor, "Who's the Bunji Lamb?"
No one answered that question. Instead, Squirrelly Chicane found herself looking up into a sweet Asian face. It reminded her of the trusting faces she had seen in China years ago, when she had been there on a goodwill tour. To this day, people still criticized her for going and for praising the Chinese authorities after she had returned home. Republicans, mostly. They were so unenlightened.