"Go," said Chiun. "I am reaching a critical point in my history of the mad emperor Smith."
When Remo drove his rented car up in front of title Broon estate in Darien, a butler was waiting at the front door.
"Mr. Remo?" he said.
Remo nodded.
"Right this way sir," the butler said.
It was great, Remo thought, being a celebrity. Another two weeks of working for Corbish and everyone in the country would know him. His face would be more famous than Howard Cosell's; his name more well known than Johnny Carson's; and Remo himself would be more dead than Kealey's nuts.
The butler led him up a broad center stairway to a second-floor suite of rooms. He pushed open the door, stepped aside, let Remo enter and closed the door behind him.
Remo went in, looked around, and realized with some amusement that it might just be the first living room he had entered by invitation in ten years. He had gotten used to skulking in through a window or forcing a door. But Remo was there as a guest, not as a killer stalking someone. It was an eerie feeling, rejoining the human race.
He sat back in a chair, savoring the moment, waiting for Holly Broon. How nice to be in a living room, waiting for someone who expected you, secure in the knowledge that when that person greeted you it would not be with gun in hand.
A door to a connecting room opened and Holly Broon, tall and full-figured in a violet silk wrap, stood there. She held a gun in her hand.
Remo noticed it, but noticed even more the long line of thigh which jutted out from the opening of her wrap. It was doubly sensuous in the heavy shadows cast by the old-fashioned lighting in the room.
"Mr. Remo," she said.
Remo stood. "You always greet your guests this way?"
"Only the ones I'm going to kill."
"Kill me with kindness. It's my weak spot."
"The only one?"
Remo nodded.
Holly Broon pushed the door shut behind her and came into the room. She was a woman, and experience had made Remo cautious of women with guns.
With men there was a logical sequence of steps, an intensity that mounted steadily, until at the flash point of emotion they pulled the trigger. A carefully tuned-in man could read that sequence and act at just the right time. But with women it was different. They could pull the trigger at any moment, because their minds and emotions didn't follow any normal sequence of steps. They might fire because they thought it was going to rain, or because they thought it wasn't going to rain. They might shoot because they remembered the grease spot on the green tulle dress in the closet. Anything might do it, so Remo would watch her. He would act as if the gun wasn't in her hand. He would keep her calm at any cost. That was the safest thing to do.
Holly Broon screamed, "You son of a bitch," and squeezed the trigger. Remo saw the telltale tensing of her knuckles just before her finger squeezed the trigger.
Without bracing himself, and from a full stand, he flipped his body backwards over a large chair, landing on his neck and shoulders on the soft carpet behind the chair. The room was filled with the crack of the bullet from Holly Broon's pistol. Behind him, Remo heard the window crack as the bullet shattered the glass and went out into the rich Connecticut hills, where it would no doubt be stopped by nothing more important than a peasant.
"Son of a bitch," Holly screamed again. "Why'd you kill my father?"
Remo heard her feet pounding across the rug toward him. She would, of course, be holding the gun in front of her. He moved to his feet. When she reached him, she squeezed her right index finger again. Nothing happened. The gun was no longer there. Instead it was between Remo's fingers, plucked from her hand so fast she had not seen his hand move.
Remo examined the gun as if it were a particularly interesting bug, then he tossed it over his shoulder. He put an arm around the woman's shoulders. "There, there," he said. "Tell me all about it." He would calm her down until he could find out how she had learned about him.
Holly Broon balled her fist and punched him in the stomach.
"Ooooph," Remo grunted. She wrenched loose from his protective arm and went diving across the floor for the revolver, her satin robe hiking its way up, around her lush thighs as she did. Her hand was near the revolver when Remo landed on the floor beside her.
He slapped the gun away, this time under a large mahogany chest.
"Now, now," he said. "What's this all about?"
She sobbed in his arms on the floor. "You killed my father."'
"Who told you that?"
"Doctor Smith."
"When'd you talk to him?"
"This morning. He called me. Is it true?"
"Now do I look like the killer type?"
"Then Corbish did it, right?"
Remo nodded, and then because he felt terrible about lying to the poor girl, he made love to her. As he did, he wondered why Smith had called. He really was demented, trying to cause trouble for the new head of CURE that way. Compromising Remo in the bargain. The more he thought of it, the more angry he became. When Remo saw him, he would give him a piece of his mind, he thought. Then he remembered with a chill that when he saw him, he would have to kill him. That took all the fun out of pleasuring Holly Broon although she did not seem to be able to tell the difference. She moved and moaned beneath him, even though he had trouble concentrating.
"Oh, Remo," she said. 'I'm so glad it wasn't you."
"Me, too," he said, since he could think of nothing else to say.
He left her with her eyes closed on the plush carpet of her drawing room, a peaceful look on her face, a smile on her lips. He stood up, arranged his clothes, and looked down at her naked body. Women should always look so happy, he thought. There would be much less violence in the world.
He turned and walked toward the door. Let her rest If she wanted to settle the score with Corbish later on, let her. That was Corbish's problem. And hers. But not Remo's. Thank God, he was out of this one.
As he reached the door and extended his hand toward the knob, the click of a pistol's hammer alerted his senses. He collapsed onto the floor. Right where his head had been, a bullet slammed into the door, ripping out a large chunk of the heavy oak. Remo pushed open the door and rolled through the opening.
In the hall, he was on his feet and running.
Nuts, he thought.
Everybody in the whole world was nuts.
He would hold this view for at least another thirty minutes, while he was driving back to his hotel and saw a large sign reading Folcroft Oaks Golf Course. The sign triggered a memory and Remo recalled that Smith told him once he lived on the edge of a fairway. Yes, he remembered, Smith had a family. A wife and a daughter, just like real people. Just like Remo would never have. And if anyone knew where Smith was, Mrs. Smith would.
Driving along the golf course road, Remo suddenly understood the telegram Smith had sent him. "When are you going to hit a home run?"
It meant Remo should look for Smith at his home. He had been tantalizing Remo all along. But why?
Remo drove the darkened deserted grounds of the golf course until he saw an old English Tudor house with a small sign in front of it: Smith.
Under normal circumstances, he would have sneaked into the house. But a taste for going in front doors had been reawakened in him. He parked his car in the driveway, walked to the front door and rang the bell.