"I'm looking for Dr. Smith," Remo said. "Is he in?"
"Your name is?"
"My name is Remo."
"Oh, yes, I've been expecting you. Harold called and left a message for you. Now, let's see, what was it? Oh, yes. He said you should go to Washington and rent a room in the Lafayette Hotel under the name of J. Walker and he would contact you there."
"Did he say when I should do this?" asked Remo.
"Oh, my goodness, no. He didn't say. But he sounded as if it was important, so I would guess he meant right away."
"I see," Remo said. "Thank you."
"Are you sure you have it right, Mr. Remo? I'll write it down if you want."
"No, that's all right, Mrs. Smith. I'll remember it."
He started to walk away, but stopped when Smith's wife called:
"Mr. Remo?"
"Yes?"
"Is my Harold all right? He's not in any trouble, is he?"
"Not that I know of."
"Good," she said and her face brightened. "He was sort of abrupt on the phone. Do you work with him, Mr. Remo?"
"I used to."
"Well, I feel better about that, because you're a very nice young man. Would you like to come in for a cup of coffee?"
"No. I'd better be going," Remo said.
"When you see Harold, give him my love," the woman said to Remo's retreating back. He turned and looked at her, framed in the doorway, and for a moment he felt jealous of old penny-pinching Smith and ashamed of himself for what he would have to do when he found him.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
"It is done," Chiun said.
Remo looked blankly toward Chiun and shrugged his shoulders.
"I said, it is done."
Remo shrugged again. Aboard the American Airlines Jet to Washington, Chiun reached over and plucked from Remo's ears the stethoscope-type earphones on which Remo was listening to a stereo music concert.
"What, Little Father?" said Remo, rubbing his ears.
"Nothing," Chiun said.
"It must have been something for you to tear my ears off."
"It was unimportant."
"Okay. Call me when we get to Washington," said Remo. He lowered his body in the seat and closed his eyes as if to sleep.
Chiun stared at Remo's closed eyes. "You will sleep a long time," he hissed, "before the Master of Sinanju speaks to you again."
Remo opened his eyes. "What's the matter, Chiun?"
"My history of the Smith dynasty is complete. Yet do you care? Even though you are in it? Do you care to learn how history will regard you? No. You want to listen to be-bops and to sleep."
"Nobody listens to be-bops anymore," Remo said.
"If anyone could, you would."
"Let me see your history."
"I don't know if I should," Chiun said.
"Then don't," said Remo.
"Since you insist," Chiun said, and he held out the long roll of parchment on which he had written.
Remo sat up straight, took the scroll, unrolled it from the top and began to read. Chiun's handwriting was big and elaborate, decorated with swirls and loops, like a Palmer Penman gone berserk.
Chiun's Mad Emperor
In the middle part of the twentieth Western century, there was in a land across the big water, an emperor named Smith. He was also called Doctor Smith, as if this should be a title of respect, but few knew him and even fewer respected him.
It was to this land, then called the United States of America, that the Master came those many years ago, and in the service of the Emperor Smith did find himself.
But there was no wisdom in this Emperor Smith and he did not deal with the Master in truth and friendship, but made the Master instead responsible for trying to train baboons to play violins. Still, the Master worked with dignity and honor and loyalty for years for Smith, doing all that was asked of him, and doing it without words of anger, spite, or unceasing complaint (This was unusual in that land at that time, because the native people were much given to complaining of things which, was called kvetching. But this was not a surprise to the Master, since they were a people without culture and, in fact, produced nothing of value to the world except dignified stories of troubled people, which they showed to the Master on a special picture box that was then called television.) The Master remained in the service of Smith because it was an evil time in Sinanju and it was necessary that gold be sent to care for the poor and the sick and the young and the old.
Among the many services the Master performed with honor for Emperor Smith was the training of a man as the Master's assistant, which is a kind of servant. To this man, the Master gave some of the secrets of Sinanju, but he did not give all of them because this servant was incapable of grasping them, but the Master did give him enough to teach him to come in out of the rain. This made the servant a man unique in that day and age in the land called the United States.
Smith was not a truly evil emperor since he fulfilled his bargain with the Master and always provided the tribute due to the village of Sinanju, and it was right that he should do this.
But toward the end of his reign, Smith began to lose his senses. The Master, of course, in his wisdom saw this but he did not confide it to anyone since in a land where no one has all his wits about him, Smith might have gone on for many years, a stark, raving lunatic, but apparently normal and still emperor.
However, in quiet ways, the Master tried to help Smith by offering him advice on how to stay in power and how not to be overthrown by his enemies. But Smith would not heed.
Then, one day, while the Master was away from Smith's palace on a most important mission, Smith disappeared. There will be those who might say that this was the Master's fault; that some blame should be placed upon him for this.
But let all who read these words heed these facts and reject this complaint as untruth. The Master worried about Smith, but if Smith waited until the Master was away on a mission and took that precise moment to go fully insane and to wander out into the vast uncharted wildernesses of his country, then the Master could not be blamed.