"Oh, hell," said Remo. "Come on." He took Larribee's arm and pulled him. toward one of the stadium exits, moving him quickly through the swirls of confused, angry people now anting their way across the stadium playing surface.
After Larribee was safely in a cab on his way to the airport, Remo slid back through the flow of people to the ramp leading to the maharaji's office.
Except for the bodies of Dalton and Harrow, the first office was empty. The door to the inner office was closed, but as Remo approached it, the door was flung open. Chiun stood there.
"Remo," he said. "I am going to Sinanju."
"I told you, as soon as we're done, I'll try to get it arranged again."
He moved into the room as Chiun said, "No. I mean I am going now."
Remo looked at him, then at Maharaji Dor seated behind the desk, then back at Chiun, who said, "I am joining his employ."
Stunned, Remo was silent a second, then said: "Just like that?"
"Just like that," said Chiun. "I will have my daytime dramas beamed in by satellite. He has promised. And I can visit Sinanju frequently. He has promised. Remo, you didn't get a chance to really know the beautiful people of India, or to see the loveliness of the Indian countryside." He looked at Remo expectantly.
Remo looked back, then said coldly: "If you go, you go alone."
"So be it," said Chiun.
Remo turned and walked away.
"Where are you going?" asked Chiun.
"To get drunk."
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Remo was no longer really a drinker.
Six bartenders in San Francisco could swear to that.
In the first bar, he had ordered a shot of Seagram's, and when the bartender brought it, he had raised it to his mouth to slug it down, but the smell had wafted into his nostrils and he could not make himself drink the liquor. He had paid the bartender and left, and next door in another tavern, ordered a beer, and when it came, he had raised it to his lips, but its smell gagged him, and again he paid and left, leaving the drink untouched.
Four more times he tried, but the Sinanju disciplines were too strong to be broken that easily, that recklessly, and besides over each glass, he beard's Chiun's lecturing voice:
"Alcohol is for pickling things that are dead. Or people who wish to be."
Or: "Beer is made from a grain that only cows can consume, and even they need two stomachs to manage the task."
So instead, Remo walked the night, angry and sad, hoping that someone would try to mug him, preferably an army company, so that he would have a way to work off his fury.
But no one did, and Remo walked the entire night before returning to his suite, overlooking a golf course near Golden Gate Park.
He looked around, hoping to see Chiun putter out from the bedroom, but the apartment was empty and echo-still.
Then the phone rang.
Remo had it to his ear before the first ring stopped.
"Good work, Remo," Smith said.
"Oh, it's you."
"Yes. Everything seems to be under control."
"Well, I'm glad. I'm really glad for you," Remo said. "You don't know how glad."
"Except there's one thing. Larribee was blown up this morning in his car, driving to his home in Washington."
"Good for him. At least he found a way out of this mess."
"You had nothing to do with it?" Smith asked suspiciously.
"No. I just wish I had."
"All right. By the way, you'll be interested in knowing. That security leak that I thought we had in Folcroft? Well, it turned out to be just an underpaid little computer clerk. Seems he followed the maharaji, and one day just couldn't restrain himself and pumped a message into the computer. Very amusing, but really nothing…"
"Smitty," Remo interrupted.
"What?"
"Go piss up a rope."
Remo slammed down the telephone. He looked around the apartment again, as if Chiun might have sneaked in while he was on the phone, but the silence was total, overpowering, so strong it rang in his ears, and Remo went over to break the silence, and flipped on Chiun's portable color television set.
The transistorized set broke instantly into picture and sound. It was the morning news, and an announcer with a smile said:
"Maharaji Gupta Mahesh Dor held a press conference this morning in the Holiday Inn in San Francisco and announced that he will never again set foot in America.
"This came on the heels of last night's highly publicized Blissathon in Kezar Stadium, which turned into a noisy, violent fiasco in which at least three persons died, victims of mob violence."
The announcer's voice faded and then came film of Dor's press conference, and when Remo saw Dor's fat face with the incipient mustache, he growled, deep in his throat, drew back his right fist, and…
Tap, tap, tap.
Remo stopped. There was a tapping on the door. The sound was familiar, as if it were made by long fingernails.
Remo's face brightened, and he brought his right arm to his face to brush away moisture that he had not realized was there.
He opened the door. Chiun stood there.
"Chiun. How are you?"
"How should I be? I have come for my television set. I didn't want to leave that." He brushed by Remo and entered the room. "See, already you are using it, wearing it out while my back is turned."