What a stupid-looking creep. Why the hell hadn't his maintenance men seen them defacing the airport?
"HE," Mandelbaum said out loud to the poster, "keep outa my frigging airport."
He hacked in the back of his throat and put a glemmy squarely between the eyes of Maharaji Gupta Mahesh Dor, the Blissful Master, then threw the poster in the waste-paper basket beside his desk, and began pacing up and down, counting to himself the five minutes he had to wait.
It was worth the wait. It was beautiful. He reamed up and he reamed down. One hundred and forty men sat there in stolid, embarrassed silence as Martin Mandelbaum told them what he thought of their efforts to keep the airport terminal clean, along with a few suggestions concerning the morality of their mothers and the lack of virility of their reputed fathers.
"Now get out of here," he finally said. "Get out of here and get down every picture of that fat-faced fucking frog, and if you see anybody else putting up any more of them, call the cops and have the bastards arrested. And if you want to beat the shit out of them first, that's all right too. Now get out of here." He looked around and saw his second-in-command, a red-faced, retired Irish cop named Kelly, sitting quietly in a front row seat. "Kelly, you make sure the goddam job is done right."
Kelly nodded, and since Mandelbaum's speech was not exactly calculated to inspire open discussion, the 140 workers silently got to their feet and headed out the door of the big auditorium-style meeting room. In masses they swept through the main terminal building ripping down the pictures of Maharaji Dor.
"What'll we do with these?" one man asked.
"I'll take them," Kelly said. "I'll get rid of them. Don't rip them. Maybe I can sell them for junk." He chuckled and began to collect the posters, piled up into his outstretched arms.
"I'll get rid of them, boys," he told the workers who were going through the building like a swarm of ants devouring a scrap of meat. "Don't leave even a single one. We don't want the Jew on our backs again, do we?" And he winked.
And the workers winked back despite the fact that they knew a man who called Mandelbaum "the Jew" behind his back would have no compunctions about calling them "the nigger" or "the spick" or "the wop" behind their backs.
His arms were full, but the terminal was whiskbroom clean when Kelly, sweating under his load of cardboard posters, walked from the main terminal area toward the back of the building where the workers' lockers were.
He set the pile of pictures on a wooden table in the deserted locker room, and with a key opened a tall gray standup locker in the corner.
The door opened. Taped to the inside of it was a poster of Maharaji Gupta Mahesh Dor.
Kelly looked around to see that there was no one else in the locker room, then leaned forward and kissed the picture on the befuzzed lips.
"Don't worry, Blissful Master," he said softly, "the Jew will not prevail against your wonder."
He put the piles of posters into the back of the locker very carefully. After Mandelbaum went home, he would return for them and put them back up.
Just as he had last night.
CHAPTER NINE
"You surprised me, kid. You didn't look like the patriotic-American type," said Remo.
Joleen Snowy ignored him. She remained kneeling on the ground at the foot of the steps leading from the Air India jet, kissing the blacktop surface, her arms extended full in front of her as in supplication, her butt raised winsomely toward the plane.
"Oh, wondrous America," she moaned. "Land of all beauty and bliss."
Remo looked at Chiun, who stood beside him.
"Oh, marvelousness of the West. Oh, repository of that which is good."
"See," said Remo. "A patriot."
"Beauteous beneficence. Vessel of purity," Joleen wailed.
"I think she overdoes it," said Chiun. "What about racism? What about Gatewater?"
"Just details," Remo said. He grabbed Joleen by her right elbow. "Okay, kid, up and at 'em."
She stood up straight, very close to Remo, smiling into his face, and under the silver stripe down her forehead and the darkening eye makeup, the face of a very young woman could still be seen. "I just want to thank you for bringing me to this great land."
"Well, shucks," said Remo modestly. "It's good, all right, but it's got its faults. Even I've got to admit that."
"It has no faults," said Joleen petulantly. "It is all perfect."
"Why did you leave then?" asked Remo, steering the girl toward the terminal.
"I left because the Blissful Master was in India and it was perfect. And now that the Blissful Master is in America…"
"Right," Remo concluded with disgust, "America is perfect now." She had been loose when he found her, she had been loose on the plane, and she was still as loose as a pail of killies.
He turned toward Chiun and shrugged. Chiun confided to him: "Anyone who would allow an Ilhibad tribesman out of the hills to defend himself is capable of anything. If the girl is a follower of his, she is defective in the head. She must be watched."
They moved through the doors into the main terminal, and as they stepped inside, Joleen let out a wail and pulled away from Remo. Inside the terminal, people turned to see where the scream had come from. They saw a girl in a pink wrap bolt forward into the terminal building, running at top speed, stopping only at a stone column, which she embraced with both arms, and began to deposit kisses upon.
"Now this is getting silly, Chiun," said Remo.
"It is your problem. I wish only to get on the vessel to return to Sinanju, and not be deprived of it by your tricks."
"You're the one who decided not to go," Remo said, watching the back of Joleen, who was still kissing the column.
"Only because there was an obligation to meet, and now it is met and I wish to go home. If this were a decent country with people who kept their promises, I would not have to feel this way, but as it is…"
"Right, right, right, right," said Remo.
He walked away to collect Joleen Snowy. She had left the first column and was now embracing a second one. Remo saw what she had been slopping kisses onto. There was a poster on the column showing Maharaji Gupta Mahesh Dor. Remo shook his head. He looked like a brown toad. A brown toad with a mustache that wasn't ever going to make it.
As he drew close to Joleen, he heard her babbling, "O Divine Blissfulness. O Most Perfect Master." Every word was punctuated with the smack of wet kisses. "Your servant awaits you again, with open body, the vessel upon which you may work your perfect will."
"Don't talk dirty," said Remo, lifting her by the waist and pulling her from the pillar.
"Do not make into dirt something that is pure and beautiful and religious. I am his handmaiden."
"He looks like he could be a dirty old man," said Remo, "except he really lacks the character. He looks more like a dirty young boy with fuzz on his lip."
Chiun joined them, and Remo steered Joleen Snowy toward the front door of the terminal. "He is the perfect master," she screeched. "All blissfulness. All peace and love come to those who truly love him. I have been among the chosen."
She continued her caterwauling into a taxicab, while Remo was trying to tell the driver their destination.
"He is bliss. He is beauty. He is power."
"She is nuts," Remo told the driver. "Take us into the city. I'll tell you where when she runs down."