"You spoke for Chiun, CURE employee. Not for Chiun, CEO of Nostrum, Inc."
"CEO?"
"It means chief executive officer," Smith supplied.
"I knew that!" Remo snapped.
"But I did not," Chiun returned. "Emperor Smith, I cannot sign away my rights without conferring with my attorney."
"Oh, here we go!" Remo wailed. "You don't even have an attorney."
"This is true," Chiun admitted, lifting a long fingernail. "Therefore I must remain in Smith's employ until I can find one and this matter is settled with correctness and fairness."
Remo groaned an inaudible word.
"Emperor," Chiun asked Smith, "am I correct in assuming that I have an office in this Nostrum entity?"
"Yes, it has never been used, but your name is on the door. "
"Then I wish to inspect my office and my building. I must know that it was not being run into the ground during my unavoidable absence."
"I can arrange that. But if the stock market crashes on Monday, it won't matter. All of Nostrum's assets are tied up in stocks and other securities."
"Sell!" Chiun cried. "Sell them immediately. Buy gold. Everything else is mere paper. Gold is eternal. It cannot be burned, or lost, or made worthless by manipulative men."
"We cannot sell until Monday," Smith explained. "The market is closed. Your best protection is to help me uncover these unknown stock manipulators."
"I will crucify them on their own worthless paper," Chiun raged. "The baseness of them. The perfidy. Attempting to ruin my wonderful company."
"I'm not hearing this," Remo said weakly.
"Shall I book you on the next flight to Hong Kong?" Smith inquired.
"At once," Chiun said, furling the Nostrum documents and slipping them up one sleeve for safekeeping.
"And you, Remo?"
Remo was leaning into the wall, his eyes closed in pain.
"Okay, okay, I'm going to Hong Kong. But don't count on me coming back."
"I know you'll do the right thing."
"Come, Remo," Chiun said imperiously floating from the room.
Remo started for the door, then doubled back. He advanced on Smith with such purposeful violence that Smith reached for his wheel rims and sent the chair retreating to the wall.
Remo leaned over.
"You've gotten very clever at manipulating him," he said in a chilly voice.
"I need him," Smith said simply. "And you."
"Just don't try to manipulate me anymore. Got that?"
"Yes," Smith croaked. He watched Remo leave the room with tired eyes. He wondered how much longer he could keep the organization together. It was falling apart.
Then, as he sent the chair rolling to the safety of his desk, he caught a glimpse of his wasted face reflected in the one-way picture window that looked out over Long Island Sound. He wondered how much longer he could hold up.
He looked over to his cracked leather office chair, sitting forlorn and forgotten in one corner of the room, and abruptly stood up. He pushed the wheelchair aside and dragged the chair back to its rightful place.
When he sat down, he felt immensely more comfortable. He made a mental note to remember to be back in the wheelchair when Remo returned.
Chapter 6
Remo Williams endured the flight across the continental U. S. in smoldering silence. He spoke not a word to Chiun during the Pacific crossing. He now stood with his lean arms folded outside Hong Kong's Kai Tak Airport as Chiun disdained the taxicabs in favor of a bicycle-powered pedicab.
Remo climbed into the rickshawlike rattan pedicab seat silently. The driver, who straddled the bicycle front, listened as Chiun rattled off incomprehensible directions, and started off.
Remo kept his mouth shut as Chiun hectored the driver, who nearly collided with a red-and-cream double-decker bus during the congested ride.
As they passed the junk-littered waterfront, the stink of the harbor invaded Remo's sensitive nostrils. Even Chiun sniffed. Remo suppressed his breathing so that the atmosphere-borne pollution particles didn't trigger his olfactory receptors.
But the stink was stronger than his self-control. The harbor stench mingled with the ever-present odors of rotting cabbages and sweaty human bodies.
Finally Remo could stand it no longer.
"China," he said in a brittle voice, "is definitely out!"
"Did you say something, Remo?" Chiun inquired in a disinterested voice. There was no point in allowing Remo to come out of his funk without having to work at it. A little.
"I said we're not moving to China. It stinks here."
"This is not China. This is Hong Kong."
"I've been to China. It smells exactly like this. It's congested like this. Look at these streets. There are more people than pavement."
"The same as New York," Chiun said coolly.
" I don't want to live in New York either. China is out."
"We could live in the countryside. Inner Mongolia is much like my village of Sinanju."
"Great. A clam flat decorated by barnacle-encrusted rocks. No, thanks."
"Your tone is bitter," Chiun said, not looking at Remo. The sea of Chinese faces passed by like unbaked rolls. "Could it be you are unhappy with me?"